Meanwhile
by pirate kit
Summary: Small things that happen during the 'Limbo' storyline, 'Meanwhile' is what takes place back on Earth when Grunt finds a small survivor among the rubble after the Reapers. If Shepard managed to raise a bouncing krogan boy... how hard can it be to raise a squishy little human kid?
1. From the Ashes

_Meanwhile takes place during Limbo. All the side scenes that I don't go into but my muse is like "YOU MUST" will go into here. So far, story plans focus around Grunt/mini-Shepard aka Pyjak, and other chapters will be Liara/Javik on planet Normandy. Blinky probably deserved a side story of his adventures zipping about being a forward guide... but I unfortunately can't channel my inner Reaper without going completely insane... more insane... whatever._

_MEANWHILE... the story begins._

* * *

_Meanwhile_

_Chapter 1 – From the ashes_

_5/7/12_

* * *

If you've seen one battleground, you've seen them all.

Or at least, that's what it should have been like.

Earth was a ruin, rubble from once towering skyscrapers making the roads impassable and destroying smaller buildings in their tumbling. The sky was stained black with ash and smog, if it was daytime no one would have known aside from the eerie orange haze that hung near the horizon. Everything was coated in a layer of dust, the dirt was even a gray color and anything green was long lost in the destruction.

The wasteland looked like Tuchanka on a bad day. The krogan homeworld, once locked in nuclear winter, seemed positively sunny compared to this. Small squadrons of trooper ships and pods traversed the sky endlessly, only adding to the pollution that sullied the air.

But the Reapers were gone. That counted for something, right?

According to the human Admiral: we've only just begun to feel the sting left behind.

Grunt had been assigned to a clean up team and at first the young krogan was horrified. Until he was passed an assault rifle and told to go make sure that all the Reaper's converted troopers were taken care of. Of course, if they had passed him a mop it probably would have been the same result... only with a lot more bludgeoning and with the pole finally shoved somewhere uncomfortable if he found any enemy troops. It was probably why he was given an assault rifle over a mop: gunshot wounds were easy to patch up with medigel assuming nothing vital was hit (and for a krogan it would take a fully spray of 'vital hits' to be that bad), but 'non-standard damage with an impromptu weapon' tended to throw the medics for a loop and tick them off.

When the Reapers left, they simply abandoned their disposable once-organic troops. In response, the troopers seemed to lose intelligence at the loss of the massive vessels. Marauders and Cannibals could only use a weapon with low accuracy now, Banshee troops all but lost their biotic power, and the Ravager units tended to pop like balloons and then deactivate without spawning swarms. Only the Husks and Brutes were still the same, already reduced down to the most mindless they could get and still move around.

"Good to see you're still alive. Afraid you missed all the fun." There was the familiar voice of Urdnot Wrex, returned to the human base of command only at Admiral Hackett's insistence. The krogan now spent his time shouting orders to any troop (of any species) he thought wasn't pulling it's weight. "Sounds like you are on 'clean-up' duty, heh. Take this while you are out there." The elder launched a dull gray pack at Grunt, who swiped it out of the air.

An Alliance symbol was stitched into the fabric, and the bag was packed entire full of human based survival gear. "I'm not going out for a camping trip, I'm just going to shoot anything that moves out there." Grunt frowned.

Wrex gave the young krogan as glare that promised to end in a skull rattling headbutt if he didn't comply. "You'll take it with as a sign of 'good will'... and because Hackett is going to tear my plates off if I refuse the gesture. Humans are glad to spare anything to assist _saviors of the universe_, but until they can asses what happened to the relays this is your entire personal belongings... and you might be here a while, boy."

The rumor was the relays were totally destroyed, but there was such a state of denial in the air that if it was true there was going to be a mass breakdown of sanity. Earth had only two working QEC systems, one comm linked to the Citadel...now parked in it's orbit, and the other was on the Normandy... who was no longer responding to hailing messages. All other communications were down, though at least the quarians were convinced they could get those repaired.

Survivors had started to gather together in the old battle HQ, civilians and injured soldiers limping their way to a sense of civilization again. Food might become an issue eventually, but the quarians had brought every live ship armed with guns they could spare – at the least the turians and quarian forces weren't going hungry. Everyone else was supplied with a massive stockpile of MRE, canned foods, and some basic grown crops being sparsely used to fill in meals. The largest supply of meat came from a can marked 'Spam'... and was quite possibly the saltiest damn thing that Grunt had ever had the misfortune of eating.

It didn't keep him from eating more, however. Fucking humans and their ridiculously addicting foods.

Blue eyes darted to the pack doubtfully but Grunt fixed the gear to his armor anyway. "I get to keep my guns, right?"

"Boy, they couldn't pry them from our cold, dead fingers." Wrex gave a wry grin, his own shotgun fixed to his hip. "Just stay alive out there until we can set transport to return to Tuchanka. If I have to explain to the female camp that you died due to botulism or some stray bullet... Bakara is going to tear my plates off and serve me my quad." There was a wince from the older krogan, as if remembering a sharp pain in a very tender area.

Grunt nodded and took three heavy steps towards the checkpoint and then froze. "Any news from Shepard?" He whirled, looking back at Wrex.

The elder krogan scowled, his scars twisting. "No. We only just got up to the Citadel again, boy, give it time. If Shepard's still up there, she's probably holed up with survivors trying to keep them out of trouble. Or hitched a ride on the Normandy. It scuttled off just before the Reapers did. She must have succeeded either way, that was a full retreat they did for no apparent reason."

A wide grin spread over Grunt's face. "I bet Battlemaster told them what she was going to do if they stayed. Enemies fear her... and those are the ones that live." Shouldering his shotgun, the one Shepard had Mordin design just for him, Grunt lumbered out the checkpoint and past an alarmed human and salarian guard.

Wrex watched the young male leave, nostrils flaring in amusement. Twisting around, he addressed a woman that was behind his flank. "The boy could have had worse for a parent to imprint off of... that's for damn sure. I suppose you regret taking him out of his tube?"

The woman's white bodysuit was perfectly pristine, despite the choking clouds of dust and dirt in the air. "At first, of course. Who doesn't regret coming face to face with an angry krogan? He more than changed my mind on the matter though." Miranda Lawson shook her head, a wry smile for only just a moment on her lips. "Just hope he's right though... universe isn't ready to lose their heroes just yet."

* * *

With every heavy step Grunt took, clouds of dust followed in his wake like he was a traveling volcano spewing clouds of ash. Krogan really don't sneak... at all... and any remaining Shock Trooper in the area was going to know he was coming. The synthetic troops no longer had the intelligence to attack in coordinated packs or plan ambushes, they just tended to wander until they found a target and then tried to revert back to their old method of attack.

A group of humans each with a dog and two krogans with a set of varren were combing the area, the creatures giving a sharp growl or bark at the smell of someone injured nearby. After the Reapers left, command had hesitated for several hours until they were sure the Reapers were in full retreat. Then they had issued orders to expand the perimeter and bring everyone to safety. Buildings had collapsed in the Reaper's wake, vehicles had flipped over, and fallen rubble had tumbled again to trap survivors where they couldn't be reached or pull themselves out of. Humans had brought out trained service dogs, and the krogan had retrieved their varren to search the rubble. There had been a bit of snapping and growling at first but the two species of 'dog' fell back into obedience at their handlers order and soon moved as one mixed species pack.

"Ugliest varrens ever." Grunt mumbled, watching as a sand colored dog gave a sharp bark and stood near a crumbled wall to indicate someone was trapped under there. A white and lavender striped varren stood nearby, also giving the indication that someone was trapped. For being so soft and fluffy looking... Grunt had to admit the earth 'varren' were effective in searching. Though almost everything on Earth tended to be 'soft and fluffy' by design.

Even Shepard fell into that category. However with her it was deceptive... soft and fluffy on the outside, murderous biotics and killer instincts on the inside. Even knowing what the woman could do and what she _had _done previously, Grunt felt she had deliberately cultivated that look to throw people off. There were not many soldiers who put on their battlepaint ('makeup,' Miranda had corrected) everyday to intimidate ('...not touching that one,' Miranda quickly ended the conversation) her enemies. Even her own squad seemed to underestimate her at times, the look of surprise on their faces when the Commander survived yet another suicide mission or brokered some kind of new record in galactic peace. Only Grunt had remained unphased by everything Shepard had done, and if asked why he seemed to accepting he would simply reply, "It's Shepard, that's why," as if that was a reason unto itself.

"Hey!" One of the humans with the rescue group was waving at him, trying to get his attention. Half of the dogs looked over, heads cocked curiously as well. "Comm chatter says there is a group of zombies holed up in the church a block ahead. You heading to clear them out?"

"I am now." Grunt rumbled, changing direction and aiming for the crumbled steeple of a human religious building..

"Hail Mary, we have krogan!" The human cheered him on. His words didn't give Grunt any pause, but he did wonder why he'd have to hail Mary when he got to the church. Didn't she have a fucking comm in this mess? If not, she totally deserved to be buried in rubble.

There were live flares in the road in front of the church, a sure sign that a scouting party had been here earlier. Leading with his assault rifle, Grunt prodded the door open and twisted himself inside. Colored glass windows had imploded into the building, showering the center dais in pieces of glass and casting the red/orange glow of the haze into the building. Inside the ruined building almost two dozen 'zombies' squatted, dazed and making their terrible noises.

Grunt only smiled. He probably laughed too, but the report of the rifle drown it out.

* * *

A dozen mindless zombies verses one angry krogan wasn't really a fair fight... so Grunt ended the battle by dropping his weapon and simply punching them all in the face until there was a wet splattering of head contents on the walls. Searching the rest of the church, Grunt found neither more zombies or 'Mary'. Wiping his face with the palm of one hand, it came away splattered in gore and the young krogan discretely wiped it on his armor, leaving a giant bloody handprint smeared up his knee.

Dropping to the ground in front of a stone basin of water, Grunt pulled off his pack and fished around for some more thermal clips. His pack contained a few medi-gel patches, plenty of thermal clips, a basic human survival kit (humans had more than enough of those to share, since their own army had gotten chewed up and spat out before the war had even started), some MRE and a small supply of water. However staying outside long enough to actually need any of these things were a different matter. The soldiers who weren't buried in rubble or barricaded somewhere tended to die really fast.

Pulling out a heavy cellophane wrapped ration bar, Grunt shucked the noisy wrapper aside and shoved the whole thing in his mouth as he finished checking over his shotgun. What was meant to be a human sized meal ended up lasting for two chews and then was gone so fast the krogan fished another out of the bag. Taking a bite out of the ration instead of just inhaling the whole thing, Grunt took the time to realize just how terrible these things tasted. Trail rations were meant to 'stick to the ribs' but mostly just made your mouth feel gritty. Jack had once bitched about how they tasted like flavored beach, disturbing fish-taste included, and Grunt completed agreed.

There was a strange stone table of standing water water that was cool in the gritty church, and the krogan paused only for a seconds to make sure there were no enemies present before dunking his head in the pool for a long drink and to rinse the grime off. Pulling out of the water, Grunt swiped at his eyes to clear away the chilly water and sank heavily down next to the basin. His hand wandered up to his crest where the only remaining scars from holding off the entire Reaper production line at the cost of Aralakh company remained. Grunt really had no clue what made him do it – fighting to the death was a typical krogan tradition (so says Okeer), but fighting to the death so another doesn't have to? That is exactly what would have happened as well... Shepard would have remained behind to see her squad, the rachni queen, and Grunt escape. She didn't even try to hesitate or look repentent when the krogan had silently put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

_'My fight, to show you what I have learned, Battlemaster.' _

This whole thing was still Shepard's fight. In the wake of her path, she blazed the trail for others to follow. Grunt's fingers stroked down the gouges in the heavy plates, each scar was like a path too. The four scars on his crest would never grow out or fill in, it had struck down to the thick hide under the plates and his unformed crest would always bear those marks even as the plates thickened.

Maybe not as impressive as Wrex's massive (and potentially life threatening) scars, but it was sure to turn some heads.

Distracted, Grunt dropped his hand back to his pack to retrieve the ration bar, but his fingers met only the thick canvas and empty cellophane. Jerking back to attention, Grunt twisted his head down in confusion. The half eaten ration bar was gone... but the cellophane was still carefully on the floor next to where he had been sitting. Grunt noticed for the first time that the stone basin that held the water seemed to actually be more like a table, with a low arch only a foot tall on two sides of the deep stone. Slowly, dropping down to one knee and leaning his head towards the floor, the krogan peered under the fount, his hand clutching at the shotgun at his waist. Something shifted under there, and he could hear the sound of chewing and a snuffling breath.

His finger crept through the trigger guard.

With a sudden lunge, Grunt jammed one hand under the fount and grasped. Sticking your hand into the den of an unknown animal is a very _very_ poor idea for a human on Earth to do... but for a krogan on Tuchanka, they call it 'fishing'.

His fingers found some coarse fabric and snapped shut on it, hauling backwards. A shrill wail and thrashing caught him by surprise as the definately-not-a-zombie began to struggle to stay under the basin, catching into the underside arched lip from the inside. There was a sudden fit of kicking and scratching and more than once Grunt felt a row of sharp little teeth try to sink into the thick hide at his wrist.

A pair of furious crystalline blue eyes stared back at him from the darkness and there was a flash of silver on the forehead and for a moment Grunt thought he had just been startled by his own reflection. The krogan felt his fingers release the figure out of surprise and it scrambled back into the darkest part of the fount.

It was a small human child. Though Grunt had never seen a human child in person, Okeer's imprinting insisted she was very young. She had some sort of light colored hair that Grunt had mistaken for silver and hung down to cover her entire forehead. Blonde or white or some sort of mix of the two colors, her hair was now covered in what seemed to be a week or more of grim. Her mouth was half open in a squeak of alarm, a gap in the row of white that could only be a missing tooth.

Had the kid been out here for two days on her own? Judging by her appearance... the human had been roughing it for a lot more than just two days. Humans had developed an odd tactic for staying alive with Reapers everywhere while the giant vessel's occupied Earth: they split into small groups and hid. And a hiding human is remarkably hard to find.

"Hey. Human, right?" Grunt craned his neck, his armored hump bumping into the basin's legs. He should call her out and explain his sudden and probably terrifying grab, he realized. However if talking to adult humans was odd and confusing (that you, Miranda, for making the problem worse), what was talking to half-incoherent children like? Could they even talk at that age?

"You're krogan." The girl's voice was dusty and low, almost a whisper with only a slight English accent. "Are you gonna eat me?"

Getting a response wasn't something the krogan had anticipated. Small talk was not his thing. So he tried to do what Shepard would do... and not the thing where she biotically charged into battle either. He tried to talk her out. "You don't even have a drumstick on you, all bones. I'd rather eat a salarian."

The child's blue eyes, the same shade as his own, blinked in surprise. Perhaps she didn't expect small talk either. "And I taste terrible." The kid said by way of explanation. "I'm fulla poison." It was perhaps the most futile threat ever. Pathetic. And adorable.

… Krogan don't do adorable very well.

"That's turians. They're full of poison. Don't try to eat those guys, plus those plates just get in the way." Nudging the bag, it toppled over the canvas topped popped open, revealing a set of the MRE dehydrated meals. "Here, these are... _slightly_ better than eating a turian." Grunt shoved one of the MRE packages towards the kid.

Short little fingers poked at the foil until it broke open over the package. Drawing out what might have been dehydrated grilled cheese or perhaps an orange brick of macaroni, the child curiously tried the MRE. However after a few bites she pulled a face. "It _is _terri-bul."

"HA! I know! And krogan eat just about anything!" Grunt laughed, his voice booming in the empty church.

Either completely oblivious to the very thought that a krogan probably COULD eat her or just beyond caring, the child scooted closer to Grunt with her eye on the massive shotgun he was wielding. The kid had watched a front row showdown from her hiding place between krogan and zombies, and when the thermal clip had jammed he had simply pummeled everything. To the kid, Grunt was some sort of unstoppable juggernaut.

Which was just about right, because to the krogan, Grunt was an unstoppable juggernaut.

Small talk had never been Grunt's strong point. Laughing at other's misfortune or sarcastic remarks (thanks to Garrus' repeated examples) were more his forte. The kid didn't seem to keen on talking either and by the time she finished her unidentified orange brick, the child had bumped into his knee and was staring at the shotgun with open awe.

While Okeer had tried to imprint on Grunt the 'old-ways' of rearing children, the young krogan had learned more from his six month stay on Tuchanka than he had from all his time in the tube. Krogan on his homeworld cherished children (sometimes by walloping them upside them head when they misbehaved, but that's what thick skulls were for) and the thought of a defenseless child got every woman in the female camps in a complete uproar. From his week-long stay fulfilling breeding requests in the female camp, Grunt had learned one thing about children: He had no clue what to do with them.

This one had to be brought back to the civilian camp as soon as possible though. "You done there, little Pyjak? Still got to get back to HQ before nightfall, and _you have tiny legs_." This last part was said at an accusing rumble, as if it was the kids fault for having a pair of the tiniest legs he had ever seen before.

At this, the child scoffed, not quite a giggle but certainly more amused than a snort. It was such an odd gesture, especially on a child. The only person Grunt had ever seen do such a thing was Shepard.

"What?" Grunt asked, a little thrown by the gesture.

"My legs aren't small, your legs are really really huge! You are a really huge ... huge-krogan, yeah, see!" Holding up one tiny hand with fingers spread wide, the child could barely span Grunt's limp palm.

"Runt." Countering back, Grunt reached down and put his palm to the child's forehead, nearly tipping her over with the simple tap. Then he seized her jumpsuit by the scruff of the collar and lifted to kid to her feet, pulling on his backpack.

Dangling from the krogan's hand like some kind of dainty purse, the little girl was completely limp like a kitten being carried by it's mother. "I'll get bigger! I'm f-fo...five. I'm five, I'll get bigger!" The kid retorted, pausing to remember just how old she was.

"Yeah, well I'm now one year old. And I'm only going to get bigger too." Grunt smirked.

There was a loud outburst of protest from the child of 'are not!' and 'liar!' as the kid suddenly swung in her clothing trap as if a live wire. The kid alternated squirming like a larval Thresher Maw and then going limp and trying to slid out of his grasp. It was like trying to keep a hold of a bar of soap, and Grunt found twice he had to adjust his grip or risk dropping the kid even before he got the door of the church.

"Damned little Pyjak! We're going into a live combat zone. Wiggling is going to get you killed." There was no placating or sugar-coating this, leaving the relative safety of the building meant entering a zone where bullets would be flying.

Explaining war to a child should have been like explaining world peace to a yahg... but the little girl's eyes went wide and all the fight dissolved right out of her. Becoming instantly silent and still, the child allowed herself to be hoisted up to sit in the crook of one of Grunt's arms, both her hands curled around his neck and looking over his shoulder. The position kept the kid safe from gunfire from every direction except straight forward, and Grunt compensated for this by advancing sideways and using every bit of fallen rubble as cover.

"I've got your back." The kid whispered, eyes wide and her pupils contracted into tiny black dots as she watched behind him carefully. Whether she knew the weight of her words or not, but Grunt felt like he was holding a tiny incarnate of his Battlemaster.

Only five years old, and already a master of watching her own back. Grunt made a noise in his throat, the soft hair of the child's neck pressed into the underside of his jaw. "Then I'm watching forward. Keep an eye open, right Pyjak?"

The child nodded, crystal blue eyes darting from side to side, paranoia that was far too skilled to be a child playing a game of pretend war. Through the whirling dust and smog of the ruined planet Earth, Grunt advanced back towards the camp.


	2. Babysitting with Shotguns

_Oh god, during the mission to free the Rachni Queen, when it said the option were 'Screw you Rachni' or 'Screw you Grunt', I just about threw the keyboard to the floor in a rage-quit. … There... may have been crying involved at his heroic 'demise' and honest to god cheering when he failed to die._

_But just because I started crying, it doesn't mean anything! I just have overactive tears. Tell me a hilarious joke and I honestly laugh until I cry all the time. Don't question my tears!_

* * *

_Meanwhile_

_Chapter 2 – Babysitting with shotguns  
_

_5/8/12_

* * *

Stealth wasn't a krogan's strong point. At best, they sounded like a full football team charging across a field at you. Grunt had so far managed to successfully scrape his boots over every loose pile of stones and metal bar within a 50 foot radius it seemed. With every sound, the child perched in his arms flinched and her eyes darted wildly about, seeking a target unseen.

There was still a good hour and a half of daylight left, but once the sun neared the horizon the smoke-choked sky went from a rusty red to immediately black. Visibility plummeted and anyone foolish enough to be outside of the perimeter was either in a Mako or just plain crazy. The comm was full of wild chatter as troops and civilians rushed to utilize the last few hours of sun before the blackness advanced.

"Shhhh!" The child hissed into his shoulder at a noticeably loud scrape of his boots.

Grunt went rigid, his muscles tensed to pull out a weapon or throw himself sideways if needed. With the child in one arm, the shotgun was no longer an option. Shooting the Claymore with just one arm, krogan or not, was a good way to get the recoil to break your face. The assault rifle was clipped to his back and Grunt would have to either drop the kid or roll his shoulder's back an expose her to any sort of gunfire if an ambush was ahead.

However, nothing moved in the darkening gloom. The child remained limp in his arms, not stiff with alarm of someone who had spotted or heard an enemy.

"What?" Grunt asked in irritation.

Realizing she was being spoken too, the child blinked at him. "Shh. Means to be more 'ssshhh!'" The kid hissed, as if that really explained anything.

"I know what shushing means! Why were you doing it?"

"You are loud." The simple answer was the truth, and children tend to speak the truth even in those times they probably shouldn't.

"Yeah? And I'm also heavily armed. LET THEM COME!" Grunt roared, his voice echoing throughout the ruined street.

Going completely rigid, the kid would have fallen out of his arms if Grunt didn't have his arm supporting her legs. When nothing sprang out at the rubble at them, the kid turned back into an animated blur of struggling limbs and whirling hair. With Grunt's arms supporting the kid under her legs and his hand clamped onto her knee to keep her perched like a small parrot on his arm, the child neglected to notice this and ended up flipped upside down from the krogan's arm. With escape no longer possible, the child returned to her completely limp mode in hopes the sudden change would cause Grunt to drop her.

He very nearly did lose his grasp on the child, which only would have dumped her head first into pavement. "Damn … little... pyjak stop squirming!"

"Shhh! You need to shh!" No longer squirming with all the blood rushing to her head, the child dangled with one finger pressed over her lips and an alarmed look on her face.

Changing his grip to seize the heavy denim jumpsuit by the back instead of dangling the child by her legs, Grunt held her up to his eye level. "Krogan don't 'shhh'."

Eyes darting nervously into the ruined city, as if the child was expecting a full out attack, both of her hands flipped up to grip at Grunt's head to steady herself so she wasn't twisting back and forth by the back of her jumpsuit. Then a tiny little scowl crossed her face. "Yes, you do shh, because I say so!" And with that, the small kid knocked her head against Grunt's crest. There was a soft 'pok' as yielding human flesh met rock-like plates.

"Ow."

Staring in shock, the tiny little squishy child _dared? _She _DARED!_

Grunt howled with laughter, lowering the kid back to the ground. Both hands cupped her forehead, which was probably going to develop into a bruise or a lump. A flash of brilliant blue and Grunt was now faced with an offended and irate looking five year old, both hands still clasped to her head. It only made Grunt laugh harder, his deep rumbling laugh echoing through the ruined city. This only seemed to incense the child more, and she was now resorting to foot stamping and trying to push the oversized krogan.

The kid was didn't even come up to his tail.

Wiping at his eyes with a meaty palm, Grunt wiped at them as if wiping away the mirth. "Fine. So you dare. Are you going to do that again?" A wide grin spread over Grunt's face, every tooth in his maw showing and a good deal of the gums as well. Krogan didn't smile often... too many other species said it was like an animal bearing it's teeth.

"No." Lowering her eyes and rubbing at her forehead, the child seemed to admit defeat. Then her nose wrinkled as another scowl twisted her tiny features. "... maybe. If you don't shh."

Giving another bark of laughter, Grunt reached down to hoist the child off the ground again. His fingers had just closed over the collar of her clothing when there was the sound of a large rock coming lose and cascading down a pile of rubble.

The sound nearly hid the scuffle of approaching feet.

"Stay down!" Hissing, Grunt instead seized the child by the buttoned front of the jumpsuit and pressed her back into a pile of rubble. Once he released her, the child's wide and terrified eyes were looking up at him and all the argument had fled. Stripping off his backpack, Grunt tossed it to the ground next to the child, and then dragged it so the large pack hid the crouching girl from any line of sight.

In the distance, there was the familiar echo of a low caliber gun with a 'pop pop' firing. Answer that was the chatter of an automatic rifle, and responding again was the _pop_ of the pistol. Something was trying to skirt around the street inside a half tumbled building, feet unsteady and a ragged breathing shattering the silence.

Krogan really don't sneak,... but they to stalk. Pulling his shotgun from his waist, Grunt padded as carefully and slowly as he could manage over the broken pavement as he approached a large section of wall that had collapsed into an apartment. Each footstep was carefully placed even when moving over the crumbled gravel bits that had been a concrete wall once. Any sound Grunt made was covered by the scuffling and ragged breathing of the thing hiding inside.

Grunt's finger touched the safety (it was off), and thumbed against the thermal clip chamber (it was loaded), and finding everything ready the krogan took a slow breath of air and flung himself over the lip of the wall to land inside the build. What was there was half of a Cannibal covered in gore as it plastered itself with the pulpy flesh of other fallen troops. Sneering, Grunt needed only to tighten his grip slightly on the trigger and the Cannibal was blown apart.

There had been a fight here earlier, judging by the splattered gore and damp blood. Darkening puddles of blue and red blood said it had been a bad one. There were two dead humans and a fallen krogan, but it looked like they had taken down a dozen of the zombie-like synthetics before being overrun. The chattering of gunfire continued, probably three blocks over. It appeared that once overrrun the group had made a fighting retreat (_'We're not retreating, we're strategically advancing in reverse, bullets flying!'_ Shepard had once said, grinning all the while) to find new cover.

A gurgling wheeze found Grunt with his shotgun pointed at what he thought had been a dead body. The fallen krogan wasn't quite so dead yet despite the fact there was enough holes in him to finish off a Thresher Maw. Struggling to breathe, it sounded like three or even four of his lungs were punctured, leaving the krogan to attempt to regenerate through it by using a backup system.

"Hey." Grunt lowered his gun only slightly. Krogan injured that badly were prone to berserking, the last thing the young male needed was an enraged krogan bleeding all over him in an attempt to kick his ass.

There was a silent nod from the krogan, the injuries were bad enough that the soldier no longer had the energy to berserk. One of his hands was pressed into the hole over his chest, trying to form an airtight seal over the bloody wound to give his lungs a chance to re-inflate. He had a crimson head plate... or maybe that was just from all the blood. There was _a lot_ of blood.

"Hold on, I have medigel." The words out of Grunt's mouth shadowed Shepard's own. He had seen first hand how the promise of medigel seemed to calm and sway almost anyone the Commander came across.

This krogan was no exception. He nodded, struggling to breathe as his lungs fought against a the blood that filled them.

Hand twisting to his shoulder, Grunt stopped halfway through the gesture when he remembered his pack was still outside with the little human kid. "Dammit, hold on. I'm coming back, so don't you dare bleed out." It was a threat as much as a promise, and the injured krogan gave a wet sounding cough in an attempt to nod.

Grunt leaned out the hole in the wall, scanning the empty streets before he jumped the ledge and advanced to where he had left the human child and the pack full of supplies. The dull gray of the pack was almost lost in the dusty haze and only the Alliance symbol stitched in black and gold stood out enough for him to see it at a distance.

Grabbing the strap of the bag and lifting it up, Grunt froze when there was no child hiding behind the pack. "Kid?" Blue eyes darted across the ground, trying to find a trail in the dust or rubble on where the human had scampered off to. There were small handprints in the dust, as if the child had scrambled on all fours or placed both her hands in the dirt toying with something. After that, the trail became lost in the flurry of other trails and rubble.

"Hey! Pyjak!" Raising his voice to a shout, Grunt grabbed the nearest slab of fallen rubble and eased it up to peer into the small hole that could be a hiding place. A growl rumbled in his throat as place as place turned up no small child and a heavy krogan curse let fly. "Kruban's sweaty quad... I just killed that damn little-"

"Shhhh~!" A small hiss came from the underside of a half destroyed car.

Jolting, Grunt ran over to where the sound had come from, kicking up a cloud of dust with ever jolting step. Grabbing the bumper of the vehicle and dropping to one knee, he heaved it upwards and spotted the blonde-haired girl flat on her belly under the where the vehicle once sat.

"Dammit! Pyjak, I thought something ate you!" Unable to drag the child out without releasing the vehicle, Grunt settled on glaring. "And you're so boney, those monsters would regret it too. _I'd feel bad for them._" The last part was rumbled in a taunt.

The child took the bait, "Am not boney! You're suppos'd feel bad for me, not monsters." Crawling out from under the car, the kid hesitated at the edge to survey the street was clear before scrambling out. "I didn't get eaten, you know." There was indignant rage (all the rage a five-year-old can muster) in the kid's face.

"Really? Hmm. Coulda sworn you got eaten. Because _you weren't were I left you."_ Now the taunt became a fierce glare and Grunt snatched up the kid by the front of her jumpsuit. "When I leave you somewhere, you stay there, is that clear!" When reprimanding a krogan soldier a swift headbutt would accompany this scolding. When reprimanding a child, Grunt figured it was best to forgo that or risk knocking the kid out. Instead he craned his neck so his crest tapped right into the kid's forehead, his glare inches from her face.

"Yes, mister." The little girl wasn't cowed though, but answered with the respectful diligence of a child who had realized 'the jig was up' and had to come clean. "But I didn't-,"

"Tell me later. We're going inside." Grunt hefted the girl back to his chest, shielding her from bullets if they started flying again. There wasn't time to hear a child's rambling explanation when there was a soldier who badly needed medigel in the crumbling building. The sounds of gunfire had slowed to only a shot every few seconds, a higher caliber crack echoing seemed to imply a sniper. Shouldering the survival pack, Grunt made for the building while giving the combat zone the attention it deserved.

Inside the apartment the slumped krogan struggled to get air through ruined lungs and his gurgling breaths frightened the child. Grunt lifted the kid up to the top of a refrigerator and pushed her onto the opening above it. "I'm going to go slam some medigel on the soldier and get his ass moving back to HQ. You can hide up there. Stay." Grunt wondered if he had children figured all wrong. Perhaps you gave them small orders like varren... but do they have accidents on the rug? Gah, children are confusing...

The child nodded, reaching out and pulling a cupboard door open so it almost entirely obscured her hiding place now. _ 'Clever kid,_' Grunt found himself nodding at this in approval. Then he bent to examine the fallen krogan, pulling his pack open and finding three tubes of medigel. Three wasn't a whole lot, but to re-inflate a lung and allow for krogan regeneration to kick in then two tubes would work. Feeding the gel into the soldier's armor port, there was a click and a whirr as the gel was dispensed throughout and applied directly into the wounds. So much more effective than just slapping it into an injury.

Anesthetics rushed into the krogan soldier and numbed his injuries within seconds. There was a surprised grunt, and then the soldier slumped slightly, losing his curled and rigid position. No longer in a half dead state, the other male's yellow eyes looked Grunt over with the same gaze a predator uses when sizing up another monster. They eyes narrowed as the injured soldier realized something. "Tank-bred." The tone wasn't very respectful, and judging by the armor it was a soldier from Gatatog clan.

Time for a lesson in respect.

"You are arguing about my birth status when I'm the one with the medigel? … that is … unwise. _You should be in awe." _Looming over the injured soldier, Grunt lowered his head, making damn sure his glossy new battle scars were plainly in sight. Heatbutting critically injured krogan while attempting to patch them up really didn't help anything and Grunt was in a dire need to headbutt _something_ soon at this rate.

There was a shuffling from the top of the refrigerator. "Awwwwww!" The child chimed.

"What the-," Grunt paused, his translation VI breaking down the phonetic meanings of the word 'awe' and 'aww'. "That's not what I mean, you pink Pyjak! Stay quiet up there!" Intimidation attempt failed due to small child...

Slight recognition brightened in the krogan's eyes. "Urdnot clan...," There was a bubbling choke from the soldier, his hand still clamped over his injury to hasten along his regeneration.

"Yes. I am Urdnot Grunt, commander of Aralakh team. Krantt to Commander Shepard, and destroyer of the Collectors." Grunt seized his weapon abruptly, irritation and fury bleeding the edges of his vision red.

In the single second of silence that followed his outburst, he heard a familiar 'click' behind him. It was almost completely unnoticed.

Almost.

Grunt whirled and discharged his shotgun twice in rapid succession behind him, moments before the ghoulish remains of a Marauder leveled it's gun at him through a doorway. The synthetic zombie crumpled to the ground, half it's torso gone from the close range blast. The child squealed in alarm and Grunt could hear her trying to hide herself better. The soldier slumped sideways against the wall, eyes wide in amazement.

"And I can do that." Grunt's wide sneer reflected the crazed pulse of rage in his ears, the electric hum of the rage slowly fading.

The sudden display of shotgun combat tactics (or as Garrus often called it 'melee sniping') pretty much settled any argument the injured krogan had and he settled under Grunt's command without argument. The kid gave a low, plaintive whimper from her hiding place, obviously wanting down. Grunt held out one hand and the child latched on, looping her legs around his arm at the elbow and grasping tightly to his hand, so she had all but fused herself to his limb. When he lowered his arm to the ground, the child didn't detach herself very far, instead clinging to one armored leg and seating herself on his foot. She was still rigid with alarm, now doubly convinced that the reaper-monsters were sneaky bastards that were coming to eat her. If anything tried to sneak into the room now, the little girl would sound the shrill scream of alarm.

"Are you able to get back to HQ?" Grunt hauled the Gatatog soldier to his feet, slamming the solder's assault rifle back into his arms.

Giving a wet cough and spitting blood, the krogan could now stand unaided. "Yes, still an hour before dusk. But the rest of the clean-up squad is in a world of hurt." Casting his eyes to the other side of the room where the two dead humans were, the krogan scowled. "They've got two soldiers now, and they're trying to escort a good dozen civilians back. However a group that large doesn't go unnoticed. We've been fighting off Reapers non-stop since we started moving. Our requests for backup have been getting lost all day. One of the buildings the comm tower was set on probably fell over finally... this sector is blacked out."

This might explain why the streets were so empty, the larger group of civilians was drawing all the attention. It also explained the paranoia at being outdoors the child currently clinging to Grunt's shins suffered from. And speaking of that child...

"Here, take her back to HQ. I think the little Pyjak has survived by hiding ever since the Reapers arrived. She's got survival instincts, don't let them go to waste." Seizing the kid around the middle, Grunt tried to pull her off his leg to pass to the other soldier.

Mewling in distress, the clinging only intensified until Grunt thought the kid had fused to his armor. He was afraid of pulling too hard, her arms were thin and twig like. If he wasn't careful he could snap one of those bones without meaning too. So it turned into a sort of game of tag, Grunt trying to capture one of the tiny arms to pry off his leg, then trying to capture another while keeping the first pinned. It was like trying to grapple an octopus.

In the end, every time he removed one her limbs from clinging and started on the next, she'd just get a better grip and return to her death-hold on his knee. "This. Is. Stupid! Stop being stupid!" Resorting back to his one-word-sentences and petty insults, Grunt was completely failing to pull the kid off and the other krogan was quickly becoming amused at watching the krantt of the great Commander Shepard struggle. "Get. Off!"

"No!" The child bashed her forehead against Grunt's knee armor, probably dazing herself but not relenting her grip. "I want to stay with you!"

"I'm about to go into battle, guns blazing! What are you going to do, wander into the battle ground and _hide them to death? _You are probably going to die if you come with. Why would you even want to go into battle, I mean... look at these arms – pathetic." Giving up on pulling the kid off, Grunt was now storming to the hole in the wall in hopes that leaving the building would frighten the kid into letting go to return back inside.

"Because. You are strong, and you have a dragon gun. I want to stay with you." Her voice wasn't quite a whimper, but she did not sound pleased at being left behind.

Grunt stopped at the crumbled wall, craning his head to look down at the kid. "Dragon gun?"

"Yeah, you made it shoot fire at the church. And then you laughed like 'heh heh'... How'd it breath fire?" The child asked, completely serious. The 'breathing fire' would be the gun's small particle accelerators double primed to shooting off a Carnage attack. As if to demonstrate, the child took one hand off the knee armor to form it into a thumb and index finger 'gun' and gave a small 'pow' followed by an impression of Grunt's battle chuckle.

"I don't sound like that." It was the only thing Grunt could think of, and it was petty.

Seeing Grunt distracted, the child went in for the kill in that way that all children do when they see a figure of authority about to cave into their demands. "Please, can I come with? I'll help! If you put me somewhere to hide, I'll hide. Or help. I can help too!" Clear blue eyes looked up at Grunt, pleading. "I want to stay with the strongest to help."

Whoever taught the kid to mix flattery with a request... they were a genius. If she figured that out all on her own... she was a survivor. Very few species in this massive war had been willing to help without getting something in exchange. Shepard had been the mold-breaker. But those who broke the mold tended to lead the pack for others like them. Grunt almost _had_ to cave in to her demands. "Fine. But you will listen to what I say _when_ I say it. Understood?"

"Yes, … Erd-not?" Nodding furiously, her fine hair bobbed with the action.

"Close enough." Sighing, Grunt leaned back to allow the kid to release his leg on her own terms. "Gatatog, you'll be heading back to HQ alone. She's staying with the _strongest. _Just let them know we'll need a transport, I don't think the survivors are going to be walking back in the dark." Grunt really could not help but gloat to the other krogan. Defying thousands of years of machismo and punching other people in the face was hard to break out of.

The injured krogan took a deep, slow breath and winced with the action as punctured lungs re-inflated. Hooray, regeneration. "Very well, Commander Grunt." Nodding, the soldier acknowledged his orders and moved out cautiously into the street. "Just be warned, those Reapers aren't smart... they'll come running at the sound of gunfire."

"Good, let them come. Running right into my gun is an _excellent_ idea." A wide grin crossed Grunt's face.

Weight shifted off his leg, and the child was standing next to him looking up. Grunt was surprised to see the same broad grin across her face too, an imitation of his own.

"What are you smiling about?" Grunt snorted, pulling on his backpack.

"You are the strongest." The child's explanation (if 'stating the obvious' could really be an explanation) was quite simple.

It only made Grunt grin wider.


	3. A Textbook Firefight

_This chapter is dedicated to every story that has a big giant monster and a tiny girl. Bioshock with Big Daddy/Little Sister is pretty much the prime example of what I'm talking about here. Who doesn't love giant dive-suited monsters with drill arms? Almost done with Grunt's meanwhile story! The kid is going to go through the ENTIRE thing before you learn her name, so get used to thinking of this unnamed child as 'Pyjak' or 'the kid' or 'hey you!'_

_… you know... I think that's pretty much what I responded to as a kid as well. That and 'Go to your room this instant!'. Let it be known, no one likes smart-ass kids. But then they grow into smart-ass adults, and that's a-okay!_

* * *

_Meanwhile_

_Chapter 3 – A textbook firefight_

_5/9/12_

* * *

The sounds of gunfire had almost entire died away and the only sounds were the long pauses between a sniper rifle's sharp crack. Grunt had picked up the little human kid and tucked her against his arm and chest where she was exposed to the least amount of gunfire. In the dull orange/gray glow of the last hour of sunlight, the child's light colored hair appeared to be a fiery red like Shepard's own crimson locks.

Grunt found he was staring openly at this tiny human kid, and wondering if this was what Commander Shepard was like as a child.

"Erd-not?" The kid was watching over his shoulder behind him, her voice soft but not frightened.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Grunt stormed quickly to the street, "Taking a kid into combat... it's not my best idea. Though it's not my worst idea either." There had been many moments of _'oh-shit, why have we done this_' while on-board the Normandy. Every squad member had done something catastrophically stupid at some point (even Samara) that had come back to bite them in the ass. Grunt's grand mistake had been so infamous on-board the ship that Joker had given it a code name for 'easy referencing training guide on what not to do!' Grunt was cursed with forever being known as the instigator of the _'Mr. Fork and Mr. Electrical Socket cannot be friends, but the krogan can be'_ incident (or as Garrus called it 'EMP Krogan attack' for shorthand).

Everything tasted like copper for a week after that.

"The monsters go away if it's quiet. Momma told me so, and it's right. I can sneak in and shhhh all the shooting peoples for you." The child offered.

Grunt's arm tightened around the kid's back, keeping her pinned safely against him. "No." His voice rumbled with a note of such finality that the child quickly revoked her suggestion. "When we get there, you group up with the other survivors. That is the deal, otherwise I'll go run down that limping Gatatog and pass you off to him." In fact, he should do that anyway. The only reason he hadn't was because the Gatatog soldier was so injured if he was ambushed there would be no way he could protect that child.

There was no reason to tell the kid that, of course. It was Grunt's bargaining chip to ensure the child followed his orders.

The little girl shivered, her eyes pleading to say something or refuse to do this... but she had promised to listen to his orders in exchange for being brought with. Instead, she gave a high whine in the back of her throat and pulled her head down so just her eyes and the top of her head crested over his broad shoulder. Still, despite the fact she disliked this order, she seemed willing to follow it.

Assault rifle clutched in one hand, and a kid in the other, Grunt made his way across the battlefield in the dim light. The survivors of the failed attempt to get civilians to HQ made a very obvious trail, spatters of blood and obvious footprints in the dust pointed Grunt towards what was probably a very sturdy building that housed a library or something because every single building surrounded it had already collapsed. A small burst of gun fire came from an upper window, targeting any Reaper troops that attempted to storm the broken door. Flicking his comm to try to hail the group, Grunt found only static and blank air on the other end. The injured krogan soldier seemed to be correct, they had walked right into a zone completely devoid of any working comm towers.

The good news was the zombies didn't seem to spot them. The constant sniper fire had all of them focused on the building and while Grunt wasn't very stealthy, he was making an attempt at moving quietly now. The bad news... the building's front door was completely surrounded. Unless Grunt felt like charging _through_ the wall to make a new entrance, he was going to have to break up the gathering somehow to get in.

"Ok." Grunt's eyes narrowed, counting nearly a dozen Marauders and three times that many Husks. There was a suspicious lack of any Cannibals. "Here's how it's going to work. _ I'm_ going to shoot things, you are going to hide. Questions?" The sad news was this was considered 'good planning' for a krogan.

Shaking her head, the child tucked her head down and tightened her grip on the damaged silvery armor. "No. Momma always said to listen."

"She just made my job easier then." Grunt rumbled, adjusting his grip on the kid.

Normally, Grunt would have aimed a charge right in the middle of the entire milling troop, like a bowling ball aiming for pins and finished any off with his shotgun. However he couldn't wield both the shotgun and keep the kid tucked against him... the gun easily weighted more than the kid did. His choice was hold the gun and shoot with the kid unprotected clinging to his back, or shield the kid as best as possible and just rush straight inside. There was no compromise to this – flinging a child over his shoulder and yelling 'bang bang' wasn't going to stop a lot of Reapers. As lucky as the krogan was as dodging bullets, he had heavy plated armor, natural armor, and regeneration to help him along. The kid had nothing, and even just one stray bullet could end her.

Going against every instinct that said to go in with guns blazing, Grunt instead charged in at a diagonal, shouldering a completely unsuspecting Marauder into the milling Husks. Moving sideways like that, the child was completely shielded by his bulk. There was a hiss and a gibbering sound as the synthetic troops honed in on him. With his cover blown, Grunt lowered his head and charged flat out for the building.

Bullets ricocheted off his armor, the familiar buzz of his Fortification tech only just deflecting the worst of it. Grunt's upper arms that were unprotected by armor felt the familiar sting and swell of heat as several bullets bit in. Giving a surprised grunt, the young krogan tightened his grip on the child as he shouldered the broken door open. Splinters of wood shattered everywhere and two Marauders inside the building actually managed to look surprised.

The charge pretty much ended as Grunt caught one of the turian-synthetics in the face with a backhand swing and then slammed it violently into the other, crushing both together with a snap of synthetics and a spray of blue gore. Blood was pounding in his ears again, the start of a bloodrage clawing just under his hide. Just to make sure, Grunt yanked out his automatic weapon and emptied a dozen automatic rounds into the two crumpled forms.

Hefting the child up to his shoulder so she was half sprawled over his back, Grunt made quickly for a heavy bookshelf laden with books. "Up. Get up and out of sight, but stay on the shelves." Grunt shifted his grip to propel the child upwards, his hand supporting her small body from below. Climbing the shelf as if it were a ladder, the child was up and out of sight within seconds, the last flash of her scrambling tennis shoe visible as she crested the top. With the kid safe (relatively speaking), Grunt turned to face the door.

The sniper's shots had stopped entirely when Grunt charged through the zombie forces. Either the shooter was taken by as much surprise as the Reaper's troops were, or they were giving them a lull to get inside so there was no friendly fire incident. Now the sniper seemed to be working overtime to try to keep the rush of zombies away. The door was gone now, completely torn off his hinges on one side and splintered beyond offering security on the other.

Pausing only long enough to empty his entire automatic clip into the advancing Reaper mob, the troop staggered under the onslaught... but did not stop. Instead of reloading, Grunt reached over and violently yanked a heavy oaken desk that might have belonged to a librarian once into a blockade position. With time to spare, the krogan began toppling bookshelves and furniture to rest against the doorway, effectively jamming the whole thing up. Unless a brute came through, it was going to take them a few minutes at least to tear their way in.

POK!

Grunt whirled around, reaching for his holstered shotgun and trying to find a target. On the floor near the edge of a bookshelf was a fallen husk with a heavy red bound book just a few inches away from it's head. The zombie had been toppled and was struggling to his feet, the raspy hoarse moan from it's mouth caused a volley of other hisses and gibbering in the library. It didn't even take a bullet to finish off this Husk, just one well placed stamp of the krogan's massive foot.

"Erd-not!" There was an urgent whisper from above.

Craning his neck up to shout at the kid for giving away her position he saw she was holding an extremely heavy looking book, one that appeared to be part of the matching set next to the downed Husk. _ 'Little Pyjak is throwing books at them. … best use of a dictionary I've ever seen. Who the hell even uses dictionaries in this day, other than like that?' _

"They're coming from both sides of the shelf!" Whispering harshly, the kid tipped her head down to look at the floor with her unobstructed view. "And they've got the lumpy ones with guns." She had to be talking about Cannibals, if batarians were ugly when alive they were even worse when dead.

"Stay down, dammit! I can handle this." Hissing in frustration, Grunt finally let the red haze of rage crest over him. Muscles tingled, the bullet wounds on the back of his arms were no longer noticeable, and everything bled into red. Going into a bloodrage on the battlefield was a poor idea... bullets tended to beat a charging krogan most days. However going into a rage in a library where every shelf provided cover and sharp turns that almost seemed meant to have a raging krogan lurking down them?...

There was a reason there weren't many libraries on Tuchanka. Having an enraged librarian chasing down any patrons to headbutt them into submission for being too loud was kind of counter productive. It was the same reason there weren't many krogan accountants... when your broker flips out and smashes someone's skull in because you brought a W-2 form instead of a W-10... is generally a bad thing.

First Cannibal that poked its head around the corner found itself greeted with a face full of buckshot. Second one did the same thing, wondering what had happened to the first or perhaps thinking it was going to take a large bite out of the fallen. More buckshot. At the third one, Grunt had instead punched it, then backhanded it into what was now going to be the fourth victim. They were honestly lining up, waiting to pass through the narrow shelves to try to get to him.

POK!

From behind him, the kid was shoving books off the shelf again. There was a hiss and a gibbering sound as whatever she had hit blundered into the bookshelf and caused a cascade of paperbacks onto it's head. Grunt only turned with his upper body and discharged the rest of the clip down the aisle. Gun now empty, the krogan turned and charged straight forward, sweeping every zombie in the row down and trampling them underfoot as he reached the end and dodged into another row to reload.

That was how the fight went. Grunt would swat aside any Reapers that poked their heads into the new aisle, and the pyjak was dropping books on the ones trying to do the same from the far end of the row behind him. Once the row started to get swarmed, Grunt would charge down, bullrushing them all into a pile on the end and then emptying his gun into the mess. Rather than going down row after row, Grunt kept circling the same bookshelf the child was on top of, like a merry-go-round of death. Rinse, lather, repeat. It took maybe three minutes to clear out the library this way, and at the end Grunt was a shivering, panting mess of raging krogan and adrenaline. He had suffered a few new bullet wounds, two catching him in the head and tearing through the softer hide there with no problems. Already the regeneration had stopped his bleeding and there was the brighter shine of new scales under the scabbed area.

Someone was at the top of a set of stairs leading to the second level. A human in Alliance standard armor, a sniper rifle over one shoulder and a look of marvel and disbelief on her face. Her lips were moving, but Grunt heard nothing. Rage still thrummed in his veins and the edge of his vision was red and hazy. He had done in three minutes what these troops couldn't do in a half hour... and they had casualties? The fury only continued to build, and Grunt found he was storming up to the surprised looking human. It was like watching a scene unfold from above, knowing what was about to happen but staring at it with the fascination of a train wreck.

A weight collided with Grunt's legs, tripping him up and causing him to stumble into the stair banister. In his rage clouded state, he had stumbled right into something... or... perhaps not. Two small arms were visible wrapped around his knee from behind, and a set of tiny legs had curled around his foot above the ankle. Even through the rage that thickened his brain into a sluggish crawl, Grunt wondered just how the kid had gotten off the bookshelves so fast to attempt to tackle his knees.

"I helped!" The child squealed, face buried into the back of Grunt's knee. "I hid and I helped at the same time. I should be in awww."

The soldier, baffled by the furious looking krogan and the tiny kid who had attempted a knee-lock grip, raised one eyebrow. "You mean 'awe'? … and '_**I**_ should be in awe', not '_**you**_ should be in awe'." Pointing to herself and then to the child, the female infiltrator attempted to correct the kid's grammar, completely unaware of the bloodrage the krogan was suffering from.

An offended five year old poked her head around Grunt's knee. "That's what I _said!" _It was, quite literally, what she did say. Pronoun usage tended to get really weird when dealing with grammar and children.

Pounding blood began to recede in Grunt's head, the red haze fading out back into color. He struggled to bring his breathing under control and not rage out. It was a rookie mistake to lose control in a situation like this, even Okeer's imprinting was insistent that going into a rage to punch an ally in the face was wrong (unless it was your intention to backstab that 'ally'... then it was fair game). This human had not dealt with being on the near-receiving end of a krogan rage before because she hadn't so much as batted an eye, though there had been a good deal of confusion.

"Whose in charge of this train wreck?" Grunt winced as the last of the bullet wounds had finally healed over, his regeneration finishing it's task and leaving his limbs tingling.

The soldier straighten respectfully in that way that most humans serving in the forces did and she saluted. "Sir! That would be Corporal Earnest... and he didn't make it. We've already lost half of our group."

Cracking his neck with a sharp twist, Grunt frowned. "Two humans and a krogan, right?" The woman nodded. "Krogans fine, patched him up and sent him back to nurse his wounds. The other two-," Grunt slowly shook his head.

Surprise drifted over the infiltrator's face for a moment and then gave a curt nod. "It's more than we had alive five minutes ago. Now it's just me. The other private took a couple of rounds to the shoulder. He's still alive, but he's not going anywhere and all he can do with that gun is make noise now – he's not hitting shi—aah,... anything." The woman cut herself off very abruptly, eyes darting down to the child.

Grunt reached down an untangled the child from his legs. But instead of hefting her into his arms to carry, he lifted her to stare right into her matching eyes with a fierce glare. "Remember our deal... you go sit with the other civilians and be quiet until the transport comes."

The kid reached out towards Grunt's head, giving a high pitched keening sound. Unsure what she wanted, he pulled her closer so she could reach him with those stubby little arms. Grunt expected some kind of feeble and soft human hug.

What he got was a double-fisted wallop right on the crest with two surprisingly _sharp _little fists. "I helped, and you didn't say thank you. And you were really mad at that lady and were going to hit her, weren't you? That's bad!" Flailing against him with her small palms, Grunt could really only compare it to being in a fight with a flopping fish. The kid's argument was choked with trying to hold back childish tears and completely failing to do that they began to spill down her cheeks. "Mo-momma sa-said to always say thank you, and not to hit an-anyone." The sobs grew in intensity until the kid was shaking with tears. The child was remarkably silent when crying though, just shivering and giving small gasps and whimpers, something that had been drilled into her head that 'Reapers will find out if you make noise'.

Alarmed, Grunt held the kid away from him so she couldn't bruise her fists on his crest and unsure what to do with a crying human. Grunt had seen a lot of strange human emotions since arriving on Earth – panic, hysteria (which was bizarre and irrational all on it's own), anxiety attacks, and sorrow. This was... something else.

Looking up the stairs at the human soldier, the woman had a sad look on her face and only shook her head silently. "Human kids are prone to emotional outbursts. They... can't cope with their own emotions at this age, let alone this damn war. There are going to be a lot of broken little children out there as we clean up."

Unsure of what to do, but knowing the lower level of the library was by no means secure, Grunt shouldered the kid against his chest and stomped up the stairs with the human private following him with her gun readied. The child had no fight left in her and slumped against the cool armor, tears working their way into the chinks and scratches. Three flights of stairs crested the library, leading up to the area the fighters had tried to secure.

On the second flight of stairs with the female soldier handing back to make sure their retreat was safe, Grunt whispered, "Hey Pyjak... thanks." His throat rumbling against her bowed head as he spoke. "Your mother gave you good advice. You should listen to it too. No female wants to see their young get hurt."

The crying broken into hiccups and small wild gasps for air as the girl tried to control her own emotions. She was bounced slightly on her perch on Grunt's arm as he lumbered up the stairs. "My momma was smart. And brave." A whimper escaped from the blonde-haired little girl and she tried to hold it in. "I miss my momma."

Grunt didn't need to see her human expression to know this was a very lost little kid.

"Yeah. I miss mine too."


	4. Story Time

_This chapter is dedicated to the ME3 multiplayer mode... because multi-kills with missiles make you look uber (and should honestly KILL YOU if you fire them point blank at enemies)._

_Kit's largest multi-kill with a single missile: 2 brutes, 2 banshees, 3 Husks, a crap-ton of Swarmers, and one Marauder who regretted it immensely. You must fear my pink krogan sentinel... his pinkness will destroy you (or maybe that would be his freaking shotgun destroying things)._

* * *

_Meanwhile_

_Chapter 4 – Story Time_

_5/13/12_

* * *

The upper level of the library was housing nearly a dozen terrified civilians and a very bloody soldier who was clinging to consciousness through a bottle of some sort of strong booze. His face was terribly pale, even with the layer of dust and grim on his skin Grunt could see he was probably going into shock.

The woman knelt by the injured soldier, taking the bottle from his limp grip and and shaking it. Completely empty. Then she quickly took the rifle from him as well. A liquored up soldier fast approaching his pain threshold did not get gun privileges. "He was trying to shoot out the window with me. Only difference is I have an tactical cloak and he didn't. The only way you are going to be able to fire out of that window is if you can go invisible or are bulletproof." The window overlooked a balcony with a spindle railing that provided no cover at all.

"I'm a krogan. We tend to be fairly bulletproof." Grunt looked the man over, frowning slightly. He had seen humans die from far less traumatic wounds. This soldier had surviving out of sheer stubbornness down to an art. "There's one tube of medigel left in my pack. He might not be of any use to us in a fight, but if he can suck it up, he might live."

"S-sir, yes sir." The man slurred, his hand tightening over his wound. "J-just shoot 'em up as payback."

Grunt slung his backpack to the female infiltrator to deal with the treatment. He didn't have a lot of experience with human armor and if he was wrong he could shove that tube of medigel somewhere _extremely uncomfortable_ when looking for the induction port. There was also the issue of the child still seated in the crook of his arm and the fact he would have to put her down to try to help (and in the end probably just make things worse), so instead he stood there surveying the situation silently.

"What supplies do you have?" Grunt could already see the majority of it. They were down to two soldiers, six guns between the two of them (the injured man's pistol and assault rifle were standard issue and unmodded, not exactly an asset), and no medigel left. That versus potentially every synthetic zombie left in London. All they could do now was hope the Gatatog soldier limped back to HQ and told someone about their position. If he died en route, it would be probably eight hours at the soonest before a search party could be launched to comb the entire area looking for them.

The female soldier indicated the weapons Grunt had already taken stock of, "Those... and one stinger missile."

It was Earth-stock stinger missile, capable of dropping multiple hostiles at once, including Brutes (assuming they felt like standing next to each other while you aimed). The only thing more destructive Grunt had seen would be the dozens of (highly illegal) heavy explosive weapons that Shepard seemed to collect and horde as if she were a weapons of mass destruction dragon.

"This is a thing of beauty." Grunt said reverently. He was keeping from cheering with glee only because krogan do not _cheer with glee_... Cackle with satisfaction perhaps, but _glee?_ Meh.

Sighing, the woman soldier rolled her eyes, shaking her head as if to say _'boys and their highly destructive toys'_. "It hasn't been very useful. Even if we shoot that crowd out there, more would just come in. We... were saving it for Brutes." _Though I suppose we could die long before they show up._ The last part was the unspoken understanding of the situation.

Squirming in Grunt's arms, the child pulled her face out of his neck long enough to look at Grunt's new toy before wiping a filthy palm across and equally as filthy face and then dropping her head back to its place against the krogan. Grunt had the missile in one hand and a child balanced on his hip. It was pretty much as paternal as krogan got.

Several of the civilians were watching Grunt with astonishment, or perhaps it was at the child currently clinging to him as if he was the largest god damn life preserver on planet Earth.

"What?" Grunt rumbling in a warning tone causing almost every civilian to promptly find something more interesting to look at... like the floor. Wow look at this floor. Amazing.

Wiggling in his arms again to get a look at the room, Grunt realized he had reached the point where carrying the Pyjak would only hinder him. The little girl weighed so little he barely noticed the weight carried by the crook of his arm, but holding a child and shooting a gun don't go together. Within the last hour since he found her (had it really only been an hour? Bullets have a way of slowing time down), Grunt had spent most of it carrying the child or shoving her into odd hiding places. Putting her down on the floor just felt... weird... like he was inviting some sort of apex predator to come along and snap her up. Giving the kid to one of the civilians seemed wrong as well, if those humans couldn't protect themselves what chance did they have at protecting a kid?

Instead of dropping the kid off with the rest of the humans, Grunt reached up and pried the vent covering off one of the duct panels. Peering inside, the metal duct walls were empty of anything except dust. "Up. In you go. If you have got to hide, then hide in here." Pyjak reached both hands to the vent and pulled herself in, her feet kicking as she squirmed along on her stomach over the lip. There was the sound of thin metal plates bending and flexing under the child's weight as she turned herself around in the shaft and blue eyes sparkled out of the darkness. There was relief in her features to be tucked in a hiding spot rather than out in the middle of the floor.

A second later the girl leaned into the room, and held out a hand towards Grunt's head. The krogan didn't pull back fast enough from the surprise attack,... and found he was yet again surprised when instead of trying to box him in the nose she pat him on the crest. Small fingers were narrow enough to lie in each of the deep gouges in the bone. "Remember to shhhh." The kid whispered.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I'll give them a big pile of shhh." The krogan grinned, however his attempt at humor (EDI would be so proud) went right over the child's head. Swear words apparently weren't a typical part of her vocabulary.

Yet.

You don't end up spending time around soldiers without picking up one of the foulest mouths around. How Jack ended up with a tongue that would make even marines blush was beyond Grunt, though he had now mastered curses in the native human tongue without the need for a VI translator. Jack had been so proud that day. Shepard... slightly amused but probably no less proud.

The female infiltrator had her back pressed against the wall by the balcony. "Oh oh _...dang." _It sounded like she very much wanted to use a stronger word than that, but humans were odd about not swearing around children and Jack wasn't even an exception to this. "They are coming through the door. That barricade did _not _hold as long as I had hoped." Flicking her omni-tool on, the soldier shimmered into a half-visible haze and hoped onto the balcony to fire two shots before her cloak fizzled out.

"She hides better than I do." Pyjak said, in awe at the soldier's tactical cloak and half hanging out of the vent duct to watch.

"Pyjak! Hide! This is not the time for gawking." Grunt snarled, his hand on the doorknob leading back into the hall. He was going to hold off the Reapers on the stairs. A charging krogan coming down the steps at a furious group of zombies usually led to a game of zombie dominos. At once Grunt noticed the undead-synthetics were much less coordinated than they had been. Just climbing stairs tended to stagger them. Most of their shots went wild, but considering how many were now massing in the library it hardly mattered. If only one shot out of every twenty hit, there were still enough down there to punch him full of holes.

Grabbing a trolly of books Grunt shoved it over the stairs, listening with delight as it crashed into the first group nearing the top of the stairs and then devolved into a spinning pile of bodies, books, and destruction as it continued all the way to the bottom.

"How's the other set of stairs doing?" The infiltrator asked, dodging back inside to avoid a spray of bullets from the window.

Grunt froze. "_Other_ stairs?"

The whine of bullets suddenly cut the air around him from his left. Several deflected off his armor when the Fortification tech suddenly fizzling out. A group of synthetic-zombies had rounded a corner of the hall to flank him, firing randomly and some shooting their own in the back. Snarling, Grunt turned and emptied his entire clip down the hall at them, cutting them down. "Dammit, you didn't say there was another way up here!"

The infiltrator was cloaked again, already out on the balcony firing down. The hall was no longer defensible with enemies coming from both sides. Grunt stepped back into the room and slammed the door to reload. His hand fumbled at his hip for a thermal clip and knocked into the something that was not his shotgun or a clip. Looking down, he had no clue when he had attached the missile launcher to his armor, but apparently putting it down hadn't been on his agenda. The human soldier was right, this missile could take out a lot of guys, but what was the point if more would just rush down the hall through the door and -

If krogan ideas caused sound, be assured there would have been the slow grind of a giant clock followed by an echoing _bong_ as the idea came to completion. "Get away from the wall! … I'm blowing things up." Grunt shouted towards the civilians, unclipping the missile launcher and lifting it to his shoulder.

A mad scramble away from that wall (and the krogan) meant every human was now cowered on the other side of the room. The female infiltrator stopped sniping long enough to drag her fallen comrade with her, a look of horror on her face. Pyjak vanished back into the vents and Grunt could hear the duct work groan under her palms as she scrambled away as well.

Pausing only to reengage the Fortification armor, Grunt turned and shouldered the door open. A dozen Reaper forces were already moving up the hallway from that back stairwell. On the spiral staircase the zombies seemed to realize that it was no longer raining books and were slowly ascending. The midway point was exactly the room Grunt was at.

Perfect.

Aiming the missile launcher at the floor, Grunt squeezed the secondary safety and released the priming trigger. A flare of fire and exhaust fumes nearly blinded his right eye as the missile shot out to impact at the ground only ten feet away. At that point, Grunt felt himself lifted up and backwards and wondered where the explosion was.

Until he realized he was already in it.

* * *

Everything was rocking side to side. _'Is Shepard piloting the Hammerhead again? … Crap, I guess today is the day we all die in lava.' _ Grunt thought, dully.

The rocking sensation stopped only to be replaced by a sickening spinning and whirling in his head. Regretting whatever brought about this change and about to ask Shepard to just 'drive into the lava and have it over with', Grunt felt pieces of consciousness snap back into place. Immediately, he regretted becoming conscious and wondered if he could render himself unconscious again before anyone noticed. His face ached, the scales tingled uncomfortably, not to mention the pounding in his skull.

"Sweetie... don't do that. Krogan don't like being hit in the head while they are sleeping." A woman's voice said. Then the pounding in his skull stopped.

That damn little Pyjak.

Struggling to open his eyes, Grunt cracked one blue orb to spot a furious and upset looking child being held by one of the civilian women. Tears were running down her face again, but there was no sobbing this time. Just upset huffed breathing. She seemed to be ramping up to a temper tantrum of epic proportions.

Pyjak spotted Grunt's open eyes and the look of rage fell off her face, replaced with a furious attempt at stemming the tears. "E-erd-not. Y-you're a big stupid stupidhead!" The child choked out, tears dribbling off her chin.

The female soldier was helping to lever Grunt into a sitting position. "You alright there Commander Urdnot?"

Grunt simply grunted, rubbing at this side of his face. His hand came away covered with half-baked flakes of blood, but the scales felt healed already. He had been unconscious perhaps only a minute or two. "Did I get the hall sealed?"

"If by 'sealed' you mean 'gone'... then yes, the hall is 'sealed'." Raising an eyebrow, the infiltrator lifted her chin towards the door. Or at the completely lack of door and walls. The entire hall floor beyond what had been the door was gone. A twenty foot crater was now directly in front of their room, and there was no way to get into this section without being able to jump _around_ corners. Physics would defend them now! Thank you, Sir Issac Newton.

Groaning, Grunt rocked backwards and then threw his weight to his feet to rise into a standing position. The maneuver made him look like an oversized children's Weeble toy,... armed with guns and spattered with gore. Not exactly 'child friendly'.

And speaking of child friendly... Grunt turned to look at the fuming child, tears still rolling down her cheeks. "What are you all riled up about?" Grunt asked, rolling his neck until the sinew and bone popped.

Breathing ragged, the child gave him an furious frown, on the border of a temper tantrum and just curling up and crying some more. Odds were the kid didn't know why she was so upset. Grunt's stunt with the missile was only mildly dangerous to krogan. He had put himself inside the blast radius trusting that his armor and regeneration would kick in and pick him back up. The little Pyjak didn't seem to realize how 'not-human' krogan were. All the kid knew was she saw Grunt blow himself up.

"Give the little hellion." Grunt held out his arms, surprising the human holding the kid. The woman complied immediately. Having seen the krogan come in shielding the kid and now nearly blow himself up to cut off the attacks... Grunt's insanity seemed to have earned him their trust.

The Pyjak fought being transferred over to him. Tiny fists flew in all directions, catching him under the jaw in a blow that probably scraped her knuckles on thick scales. Once he got her, Grunt curled his arm so she sat in the crook of his elbow again. A furious little Pyjak tried to headbutt him (Grunt didn't even blink) and then resorted to struggling and pounding her fists against his head plate silently. None of it even phased Grunt, and he simply stood there and let her tire herself out.

Finally, giving up, the child went limp and Grunt nearly lost his hold on her as she slumped backwards so once again she dangled by the knees she had wrapped around the crook of his arm. Making sure she wasn't going to land on her head, Grunt decided to just let her hang upside down. Like a dead parrot. If she wanted to do that, then far be it from him to stop this bizarre human temper tantrum ritual.

"What?" Grunt asked suspiciously as one of the human men fought a smile at watching.

The floor... it is immediately fascinating to those humans.

After a few moments of hanging upside down with all the blood rushing to her face, the kid struggled to right herself and returned to burying her head in his neck. There was a mumble of 'stupidhead', and the Pyjak was quiet then.

There. Temper tantrum averted. Grunt smirked, recalling Shepard's mean of controlling his own wild temper before he finally out-grew that state... she would just enter the cargo hold, kick a bucket upside down and seat herself on it. It had never failed to throw him that his battlemaster was just sitting there quietly, watching him have a fit, but never judging him. Eventually, the urge to break the things around him faded and he learned to channel it into battle. EDI had been remarkably grateful on that day.

"What's going on now?" Grunt asked, letting out a huff as he shifted the child to rest against his hip.

A tactical cloak shimmered on the balcony and then moved swiftly to the new hole in the wall. "Well, they are still out there, but since they have no way up to this room anymore, they are all moving inside this building." There was a fizzle and a pop as the cloak lost it's charge, revealing the soldier. "I'd say we're safe, but not going anywhere. Now what?"

"Now?" Grunt leaned back against a wall. "Now we wait," he rumbled.

* * *

The air of anxiety was gone now, replaced by the monotony that comes from waiting. Several of the civilians formed a group and bedded down while the others still appeared too anxious to sleep. The backpack of survival gear yielded a thermal blanket and a thin foam mattress pad, a basic medical kit (no gel, just bandages and salves), an old-model comm band radio (didn't work, no connection), and the MRE food packed away. All of it was pulled out and put to use. Outside in the darkened gloom, there was still the sound of hissing and gurgling, but there wasn't a lot they could do to get up to the second floor room with no flooring.

Grunt was thumbing through one of the heavy bound books. All appeared quite old. "What is the point of this building? Don't you have all of these archived to dataplates anyway?" Grunt shook the book, watching as the pages fanned.

The female soldier had taken a seat near him, facing the gaping hole in the wall as any good soldier watches the weakest point. "Yeah, everything's archived. But the building is used as a historical archive. … was... was used as an archive. These books look like they really didn't survive the invasion." Picking up a fallen book, the cover was curled and all the pages were a fused mass of papery pulp and water. The building had taken just enough damage to destroy the climate control seals and the roof was gone in places allowing water in.

Grunt passed the little Pyjak to the infiltrator, heading towards the gap in the wall with a heavy tome in one hand. Pausing at the edge of the gap, he thumbed the book one more time and then snorted in distaste. Then he chucked it at the living carpet of zombies on the floor below.

"Urrrghhk!" There was a strangled gurgle after a brutal thump, and a zombie fell over into the crowd.

"Got a new use for these useless books then." Grunt smirked, picking up another book and hurling it downwards as well. Without the chatter of automatic fire to draw them in or a clear sight of any organics, the zombies tended to gather inside of the buildings and shuffle around aimlessly.

Fish in a barrel.

"Here, try these." The soldier shifted her foot and kicked a pile of books closer to the gap Grunt stood over. "Autobiographies. Always thought that was a special brand of cocky to write a book about yourself."

Amusing himself by silently picking off the synthetic forces milling below by a crushing blow to the skull with a book, Grunt turned to grab another pile of books only to find one of the soldier holding out a heavy and dusty tome to him with the little Pyjak clinging to her back like some kind of... well... pyjak.

"Try this one. It's a really terrible book." The private said, shoving it into his hands.

Grunt briefly looked at the title. 'Atlas Shrugged'. He made a noise of disgust. "It makes me angry just looking at it." And with that he chucked the heavy book down the stairwell and there was a delightful _crunch _as the Marauder toppled to the floor. The next zombie that looked up was gifted with a blow to the head with 'Calculus 7th Edition, and Student Manual'. The Cannibal crumpled.

Deadly Calculus.

… Wasn't that something Garrus had said over the comm once? Somehow, Grunt doubted this was what he meant.

They were just killing time (and zombies) with their antics. Several of the people had actually attempted to read the books but the ages and new environment had done enough damage to the books to make the brittle paper difficult to read. Grunt had chucked a few more books, pegging a Cannibal in the back so it turned and took a bite out of the nearest one to it. After that it had degraded into a massive zombie brawl and Grunt was satisfied to end his book-based assault on that. The infiltrator put the child down to check on her team mate and then took up a brief round checking all the civilians were settled for the evening.

Pyjak waved a book at him, "This one!" The child pushed at his legs and she lifted up to her tiptoes and raised the book to him.

Shrugging, Grunt took the book, stomped back over the hole and chucked it down. There was no visible effect on the zombies.

"No! You were supposed to read it." Disappointment crossed the child's face.

"Why? Is is that terrible that it would kill them?" Grunt regretting throwing the book now. Humans and their poetry and writings... some were pretty terrible.

Toeing the ground, the child wrinkled her nose. "No, read it to me. I wanted to hear it." She said, sulking.

Oh.

Well, too late to go back and get it now. No story was worth that kind of fight. The child didn't even look like she needed a story. She was wobbling slightly on her feet, dizzy and exhausted. Everyone was exhausted, and even Grunt was no exception. Stooping to pick up the kid, he rested her against his arm and picked a section of wall to put his back to.

Shuffling slightly, the exhausted private slumped against the wall next to him. "Think it's safe to get some shut-eye? I'm running on stims and adrenaline and those are gone at this point."

"I'll take watch. I don't think they can get up here... but I'll be ready if they are." Grunt eyes were steady on the gaping hole on the floor.

"Thank god... for krogans." The woman slumped from the wall and onto her side, not bothering to strip off her armor.

The squirmy little Pyjak that was seated in Grunt's arms tried to wiggle free. Instead of trying to reach the ground though, the child was trying to climb onto his shoulder. Curious, Grunt boosted the kid up. The only thing the child did was seat herself on his pauldron and flop over the arch of his back. The result was it looked like Grunt had clubbed the child and was now wearing her as a disturbing impression of a mink-stole shawl.

"Can you tell me... a bedtime story?" The Pyjak asked, groggily.

Grunt lifted his head, peering at the kid with one eye. "Human or krogan? Because I don't know your soft human stories... and krogan ones will probably give you nightmares." Krogan bedtime stories all had the same flavor as a Grimm fairy-tale, usually someone got eaten in the process to get your 'happily ever after'.

Just don't ask about Red Scar and the three Thresher Maws... that one was particularly vicious.

The child just made a noise like 'meh' and lazily lifted one hand to tuck under her chin. Her other hand found his crest plate and ran the length of the deep scars like other children would stroke their favored teddy bear.

Grunt could actually recall just one human bedtime story. Told to him by one particular human...

* * *

"Shepard." Grunt nodded, eyes fixed on the woman as she entered his cargo domicile.

"Grunt." Nodding back, it was as if she understood some unspoken complex ritual between krogan. Looking around the cargo storage, she frowned slightly. "I like what you've done with the place. It's very... the same." Since Grunt had woken up, Shepard had told him he was allowed personal effects if he needed or wanted any. However Grunt showed just as much interest in them as Jack had. All the krogan had put in a requisition for was a shotgun and a rifle, both of which were strewn on the floor.

Grunt itched with irritation and another emotion he couldn't identify (he later found this to be just plain krogan bloodrage) and started pacing.

"You seem off. Need something?" Shepard noted. Nothing seemed to escape her sharp eyes, even if a 200 pound krogan fuming was more along the lines of 'obvious' than any sort of great deduction.

"I don't know. … Okeer implanted many memories while I was in the tube. He gave me visions of the krogan space fleet on the way to go fight a great enemy and convoys of vehicles carrying troops. But he didn't give me any information what is happening_ while_ those troops are traveling there. What do they do to pass the time until that next battle? I feel... there is something I should do. Just sitting here feels wrong." Grunt's pacing stopped, and he fixed Shepard with a cold blue-eyed stare.

The woman was unphased. "So you need a hobby. Preferably one that doesn't involve tearing the ship apart. You could try talking to people."

Grunt made a noise of distaste.

"Have you tried to talk to Zaeed yet?"

There was a blank look from Grunt.

"Zaeed Massani. Old mercenary who is rooming just down the hall from you?" Shepard jammed a thumb over her shoulder towards Zaeed's door.

Recognition dawned. "The battled-scarred human. Impressive scars ... for a human. Though you all have paper thin skin." Grunt dismissed the subject.

Shepard didn't let it go though. "You should give it a shot. He's got some stories that make me think he should have been born a krogan. They all mysteriously end with him being the only survivor out of a group massacre. If he's ever tells me one where everyone _doesn't_ die, I think I'll be the one dying and mostly of shock."

Arms folded, Grunt leaned back against a heavy cargo box, scrutinizing the Commander silently.

"If you are ever bored of hanging out in this _fun house_ you have over here, I'm sure Zaeed would be glad to –,"

"Tell me a story." Grunt stated.

"Yeah... or three." The woman gave him a sideways smile.

Grunt pushed off the cargo box, shaking his head. "No. _You_ tell me a story."

Shepard was completely taken aback by this request. "What?"

"I want to hear something you have done, Battlemaster. Okeer implanted memories and tales of great warlords. Great... but ancient, and slightly boring. I have nothing on your great conquests. I want to hear of your battles." Grunt leaned forward to examine the slightly glowing cybernetic scars along the Commander's jaw and neck. They seemed to be fading slightly, no longer as brilliant as they had been when he had awoken.

It was the first time Grunt had ever seen the Commander lose her focus and exhibit what seemed to be human embarrassment. However it lasted only a second and then the woman had turned to him suddenly with a sharp cut of her red hair. "Well, there is one story that I have. I call it, _'How I Inadvertently Managed To Save The Galaxy.'_"

Grunt reseated himself on a cargo container, his jaw set in a line of grim pleasure. "Is there fighting?"

Shepard kicked over the bucket in the corner she preferred to use as a chair and seated herself. "I'll tell you what, if there is ever a story I tell you that doesn't involve fighting, I'll give you a disclaimer before we start. And if we get through this story, I have one more you might like. Work in progress though, called_ 'How I Saved The Galaxy Again With A Genetically Perfect Krogan... and a shotgun'_."

"I like the title." Grunt was grinning widely.

* * *

The small hand on Grunt's crest was poking lazily at the hide beneath the unfused bone in an attempt to get his attention. "I have just one story." He said simply.

Pyjak rolled slightly, so her belly was over his hump and she could look down at his face. "Is the world saved at the end?"

"The world. The galaxy. Everything. … Except the bad guys. They get blown up."

The response to that was a wide grin from the kid, and she settled down leaning against the back of his head to listen.

And then he started.


	5. Repetition

_OH GEEZ, apparently I move on Saturday now instead of Tuesday. NOT EVEN READY! Not even a little! This is the Kit giving one last chapter with the promise of fixing any mistakes once I am moved in!_

_Disgusting things located thus far: cat hairball (WHAT THE HELL, CATS, this is not a game of 'hide the puke!'), cold medicine from 2009, chicken broth that was GELLED in the fridge, and a shirt that belongs in the 70's that is not mine._

* * *

_Meanwhile_

_Chapter 5 – Repetition_

_5/16/12_

* * *

Grunt hadn't been in many situations where setting up guard over sleeping people applied. With the Normandy, there had only been two occasions when the boarding party crew got to spend and overnight trip somewhere rather than the typical rush-in, rush-out jobs. During those two missions, it had been too hectic to sleep anyway. Once he had returned to Tuchanka and been set in command of Aralakh squad, that had changed only slightly. Krogan tend to keep going until exhaustion strikes and then bloodrage until fatigue drops them where they stand. Aralakh had completed all their missions long before that point ever took place, but Grunt found he had to watch his own back from everyone else. There was always the upstart (old and cranky upstart) who had a bone to pick and got it through their thick skull that Grunt was 'vulnerable' while he slept.

That was a complete lie. Grunt was _highly armed_ when he slept.

Now in the second story of a library, surrounded by synthetic zombie forces, Grunt was unsure if he was supposed to actually get up to make sure everyone was still alive, or just remain still and wait for trouble to find him. The choice was more or less decided by the child curled over his shoulder. Pyjak was prove to be able to sleep like a krogan if she could find a comfortable section of steel armor to curl up on and rest. Getting up might wake the child, and she was so exhausted it felt cruel to yank her from quite possibly the first sound sleep she had in days.

Clicking on his omni-tool, Grunt was dismayed to find it was only 2300 hours. If all had gone well, the Gatatog soldier should have limped back to camp by almost 2000 hours. Even if it took an hour to scramble a rescue transport, they should have been here by now. If Grunt hadn't destroyed the floor in front of the room, they would have been taken down by attrition by now.

If he survived, he was going to break that Gatatog's plates... also if the other soldier survived too. If he died, then Grunt could complete the Rite of You-Had-it-Coming and be done with it.

Curled on his shoulder, Pyjak suddenly stiffened, giving three ragged breaths before trembling and going limp again. Twisting his head to the side, Grunt could get a slight profile view of the kid. She was still asleep, but an small grimace put a little line between her eyebrows. A few more seconds passed before the grimace grew into a flinch and a shudder ran through her small limbs.

Nightmares. It was nothing like a krogan nightmare, where they would wake up in full bloodrage and generally barrel through any wall not made of poured concrete in a hazy dream state. Human nightmares tended to be quiet, but their faces would twist into whatever reaction they faced in the dreams. The Pyjak seemed to be trying to shrink in on herself, both her arms twisting up over her face. Even in her dreams the child seemed to survive by hiding.

Shifting to a more comfortable sitting position on the floor, Grunt could feel the weight of the little Pyjak shifting, threatening to fall off her precarious perch. A sheet of white-gold hair spilled over Grunt's crest as the child was carefully pushed to slump over him where she wasn't about to topple to the ground. It was one thing the young krogan didn't understand about humans (add it to the list, it was getting quite long by now), their hair was so strange. Shepard had kept her hair neat and trimmed to rest just above her shoulders where it didn't get into her helmet's seals. Miranda's long hair got in the way on occasion but she was able to pull it up into a pile when needed. And then there was Jack, who gave the whole hair thing the middle finger, told it to fuck off, and then decided to do her own thing. Grunt no longer had any clue what 'normal' hair passed for as a human, but he was fairly certain that long hair was either a sign of good health or of neglect.

Reaching up, the krogan caught a strand of the hair that seemed to be silvery in the dull light. The Pyjak was in a dire need of a bath, but then again so was just about everyone and you honestly did get used to the smell after a while. If washed and brushed, the child was probably in much better shape than anyone would assume for being on her own for so long. While thin and scrawny, Grunt had to assume it was because she was in between growth periods rather than starving. Even in the face of an unstoppable genocide on her people, the child had managed to survive.

Another whimper escaped the Pyjak as she slept. Releasing the strand of hair, Grunt murmured up to the sleeping child. "Whatever you are dreaming of... knock it off. I'm the most terrifying thing around here and you're asleep on my shoulder." Grunt's deep rumbling voice banished the wrinkle between the child's eyes and her expression softened to a more relaxed one. It was a bit odd how they matched, blue to blue, silver to white-blonde. If the Pyjak had the same coloration and were a krogan instead, Grunt could probably apply for Rite of Parentage on the child and bluff his way through the inquiries.

The though caused his stomach to fill full of the Earth 'butterflies' and his heart (the left one) plummeted down to join them. It was a bizarre thought, applying for the Rite someday. More bizarre was the thought of applying not just for any legitimate kids, but one that was quite obviously not his.

"This is stupid." Grunt shook the thought away, twisting his neck ferociously as if to physically shake it off. Humans stick with humans, krogans stick with krogans (and asari do whatever the fuck they want to). The only hitch in that argument was the giant hitch that so many of Grunt's arguments took root from_. Shepard. _

Shepard didn't give a varren's tail on what people thought and would have adopted a dozen tiny krogan just because she could raise them. That and combined with the fact that her consort (selected for his ability to withstand rockets to the face, no doubt in Grunt's mind. It was a desirable trait for any female to seek out.) wasn't going to be producing any little sarcastic, gun-wielding turian-human crossbreeds with Shepard. It was unfortunate really... because the universe needed more people like Shepard.

Something hissed and crackled in the darkness. Any attempt at sleep was immediately destroyed and everyone was bolt awake. Grunt had hauled the little Pyjak off his back and pinned her to his chest, rolling so he was balanced on his toes with one hand braced on the ground and the kid tucked out of any line of fire. Completely silent and rigid, the child put herself into a defensive curled ball. There was a chirping noise as the female infiltrator tossed her tactical cloak up and vanished in alarm, setting herself up for some sort of ambush shot.

Nothing moved in the darkness. The clicking continued, increasing in pitch until Grunt jolted at realization of what it was. The radio that had been in his survival bag had been turned on at the command-side of HQ and was now broadcasting their location. That meant the comm tower was up again!

"Finally." Grunt rose to his feet and snatched up the comm band to examine it. "That survival pack didn't have enough to feed a krogan, let alone a dozen odd humans. I'm starving."

"I could eat a turian." The kid said softly, repeating what Grunt had once said to her. She was like a small parrot with thumbs (and a perchance to simply vanish into the vent systems).

"Yeah, but we don't do that. Remember... slightly worse than an MRE." Grunt snorted.

The private reappeared with a dying sizzle of her tactical cloak, the look of disbelief and wild confusion on her face.

The Pyjak 'explained'. "I'm fulla poison. And small bones. And still less tasty than a turian."

"I'll have to take your word on that." The Private glanced over at Grunt, wondering just what this was all about. Her only response was a slight twitch of a smirk as the krogan continued to stare at his radio.

Static burst over the comm still making the clicking noise of an approaching ship sweeping for them. Giving the holo-face of the radio a few flicks and jabbing connections, Grunt managed to thin the static to hear an argument over the other side.

"-should have responded by now! There has been no gunfire reported for hours. We can sweep this area, but you aren't going to like what we find." The speaker said.

"I don't have to like what we find, I just have to find it. Shepard would flay me if I didn't go looking for her bouncing baby krogan boy." Wrex's voice was one of the easiest to identify, and he sounded only a few minutes away from breaking into a bloodrage where ever he was.

Thumbing the send button, Grunt transmitted a terse message, "Clan leader. I'm fine. You found Shepard?" Missing for twelve hours and his only report is 'I'm fine' when there could be potential news on Shepard.

There was a krogan mumbled curse as Wrex realized they had found Grunt. "Dammit boy we've been searching for hours for you! There is no news on Shepard yet... but sometimes no news is good news, except in your case. What news we did get was from some bloodied Gatatog soldier limped back into camp only saying some young buck was out gunning around... _wearing a human kid on his back_. … Grunt, tell me you did not take a human kid into combat." There was a tone of menace in Wrex's voice. The clan leader had fathered perhaps a dozen children even during the genophage, and had his Rite of Parentage on most of them. Hearing Grunt had chosen to carry a child with him rather than let the Pyjak be returned to HQ on the back of a badly injured soldier did not bode well for Wrex's temper.

The Private's arm shot out and pulled the radio down so she could speak into it. "Did the clan Gatatog Gilga make it back in one piece? This is Private Moleen, of the 66th division."

A slight hesitation was speckled in static. "Mostly. On the last push through the no-man's land before the perimeter he was nearly taken out by a Brute. Snipers dropped it before it disemboweled him. He'll heal... Mostly." Wrex rumbled. "And what was the 66th doing all the way out here? We lost contact with you at midday. You weren't even supposed to be in this sector." Wrex now turned his full intimidation onto the human. Even while not there, the krogan could drain the courage out of even a trained soldier.

Jerking the radio back, Grunt spoke before the soldier could make it worse for all of them. "Are you going to send a rescue, or not? We've got thirteen survivors and one soldier who is determined to bleed out... HEY, stop bleeding! You used all the medigel!" Releasing the trigger to send his comm just a little too late, that last bit went to Wrex as Grunt spotted the injured soldier trying to pull himself to a sitting position and a new puddle of red slowly expanding under him.

"Yes sir, just let me turn off my 'bleeding all over the place' nozzle here, and we're fine." The soldier grit out, his jaw tightened with pain.

The radio crackled. "We're almost there. Any casualties?" The pilot was speaking now, a sense of urgency in his voice.

"Not on our side. The rescue crew lost two before I found them, but no civilian deaths. On the Reaper's side... many." Grunt paused, looking over at the bookshelves of antique tomes. "There was a victory for good taste, I've been told. Some of these books are terrible, and made good projectiles." Glancing sideways at the Private, she gave him an amused twist to her lips, shaking her head in amusement.

"You threw 'The Poky Little Puppy'. I wanted you to read it!" The Pyjak seated in Grunt's arms said in a pout, not realizing the comm was still active or simply not caring.

"I'm not reading you a book on Earth-varren, Pyjak!" Grunt released the comm trigger a half second too late again. The child gave a cut-off whine, folding her arms

The chuckle from Wrex was faint as the elder forgot to release his own comm trigger. "We'll be there in five. Prepare for an air pickup." There was mercifully no remark on what would happen once the shuttle met with them, but Grunt doubted he was about to get his ass kicked in front of the kid.

The problem would be once the kid got sent off with the survivors. Oh, the thrashing was going to be bad...

Repacking the survival pack showed there wasn't much to put back into it. The medikit was almost completely used, all food was gone, and the single use heating packs were nearly all expended. Only the radio, blanket, and bedroll were put into the nearly empty pack. Grunt shrugged the bag over his shoulders, clipping his guns as well the injured soldier's weapons to his armor.

There was a sudden weight that slammed into Grunt's lower back and small hands attempted to scale his armor. The Pyjak was trying to climb the krogan like an squat and cranky tree. "What – are you doing?" Grunt rumbled, his blue eyes scrutinizing the child as she seized the bottom of the backpack and pulled her way up.

Finally conquering Mount Grunt and seating herself across his back, the child looked down at him upside down from her perch. "I can do it myself." She said, simply. "You don't hav'ta carry me."

"Yet here I am... still carrying you." Grunt's voice was completely lack-luster, though a wry smile remained on his face.

Childish logic reared it's head. Pyjak attempted to punch him in the snout to apparently assert superiority. Mostly, she just whiffed and batted at the air. "No, now your hands are free for the Dragon gun. I'll watch your back. … from your back."

Someone was snickering behind Grunt. He whirled, only to see a complete lack of Private Moleen. That sunnva- she cloaked just so Grunt wouldn't see her having a fit of giggles. The krogan couldn't decide if he was offended, or at least relieved she was was trying to be inconspicuous. Pyjak's gesture was pretty futile at this point though. Grunt was just going to climb right into the shuttle and put the kid on the floor and then pass out until they reached HQ, no shooting involved.

… except for shooting glare Grunt got the second the door opened. Wrex stood in the entryway, red eyes burning into the younger krogan in a glare. The civilians quailed, almost willing to risk reaper zombies over a furious krogan. However Private Moleen lead the way, carrying her injured teammate in a firefighter's lift and heading passed the warlord with a respectful nod. Wrex moved aside, leaning against the frame inside the shuttle and waited. The scowl on Wrex's face wasn't any different than any of his normal scowls, but somehow Grunt didn't think it boded well.

Oh... it was most _definitely_ not going to be good.

The child was agog as Grunt shuffled into the shuttle, clinging tightly to his shoulder. "Erd-not... he's... he's really really big." Pyjak whispered, flattening herself to Grunt's back as if she were trying to camouflage herself.

The krogan warlord followed Grunt's progress as he dropped to an empty spot on the floor, leaving the kid on his back. His eyes narrowed in consideration at the child, the deep scowl lines fading slightly. "Grunt." Wrex spoke slowly, a message carrying across under his single word. _'You are up to your quad in trouble, boy... you are lucky I'm not going tear you a new one in front of the kid.'_

"Clan leader." Grunt nodded, more than a little resigned. _ 'I know, I know. I'm in the eye of the shitstorm.'_

"So, what have we here?" With his unspoken warning completed Wrex turned his full attention to the child.

"I'm poisonous!" Pyjak squeaked, trying for fierce but hitting it at two octaves too high. She dropped from Grunt's back and stood her ground, actually inhaling to puff out her little chest. It was the human impression of a puffer fish, it seemed. Grunt felt the sudden urge to snatch the kid back off the floor, as she faced off with the krogan warlord.

Wrex lowered himself to rest his his finger tips on the ground and putting himself at just about eye level with the kid. "Really? Wasn't aware humans were poisonous." Staring head on so both red eyes focused on the kid, Wrex seemed to be trying to either intimidate the child or bait her into some kind of reaction.

There was no clear reaction from the kid. She simply took three steps closer to Wrex, still puffed up and now apparently holding her breath. Grunt stiffened when he realized what was about to come.

Pok!

"... oooowww."

The child had lunged forward, her soft little skull colliding full on with Wrex's heavy forehead plate. All the human survivors were gawking at the little girl now, her long hair covering her eyes as she leaned forward to cup her forehead. What had driven her to headbutt the warlord... Grunt didn't even care at this point. He jerked forward and pulled the kid back to his lap, taking her out of Wrex's range if the warlord decided to-,

"HAHAHA! That damn little pyjak!" Wrex cackled. A krogan headbutting a krogan was the equivalent of a punch. A child krogan headbutting an adult was pretty much a temper tantrum and usually resulted in cuffing the kid upside the head. A human heatbutting a krogan was a terrible insult to your masculinity... but it appeared that a human child trying to headbutt was just hilarious. "No wonder you took her with... she headbutted you into submission, didn't she?"

Grunt wasn't sure how the elder krogan knew. "It was so pathetic, I thought she was going to knock herself out if she kept trying."

The kid retorted, rubbing a reddening spot on her forehead with her fingers, now seated so her head bumped just under Grunt's chin. "I wanted to go with you because you were the strongest."

Wrex seemed to suddenly understand now why Grunt had risked bringing a kid with. Gatatog barely survived returning to HQ even with regeneration. If the little survivor had gone with, she would have been Brute fodder. Grunt had been the safer choice of the two.

"Hng, well pass her off to Miranda when we get back. Hackett wants to debrief you himself." Wrex returned to his typical scowl.

Grunt flinched. How much _more_ trouble could he get into?

The shuttle ride back to HQ was loud. Every civilian was in high spirits and happy humans tended to be chatty and noisy. The battered shuttle squealed and stuttered like there was a tortured klixxen in the drive core. Yet the ride wasn't nearly long enough. The small little girl with the nearly-silver hair was seated in Grunt's lap, his broad head looming over hers and raised knees and folded arms barricaded everything off. The threat of danger no longer existed, but still the child seemed only relaxed when she was nearly hidden from view. Her small hand was still pressed into her head to block off the pain of headbutting a fully-grown krogan and her other hand hand latched onto Grunt's thumb to steady herself in the jarring shuttle.

Currently, there was no housing set up for single children without parents. Those stray children that were pulled from the wreckage were either sent straight to medbay or were shadowing techs who stayed safely in the HQ perimeter's all day. There was consolation in knowing Miranda would be the one to watch the Pyjack. Miranda as fiercely maternal in her own human right and would make a good care-giver until a temporary housing unit for children could be set up. It was possible the Ex-Cerberus agent would apply for the Rite of Parentage for a kid.

That would likely make this the last moment Grunt had with the kid. Hackett and Wrex kept the young krogan bouncing from location to location to clear out Reapers. The only time he spent safe in the HQ perimeter was the time he was unconscious on a cot. There was simply no time to watch out for the Pyjak.

Soft hair brushed against Grunt's chin. His blue eyes slid open (when had they closed?) and he found he was resting his jaw on the crown of the Pyjak's head. The child was toying with the heavy gauntlet around his wrist, her blunt fingers scraping along the tarnish that had collected on his armor. Immediately Grunt felt the shuttle had stopped moving (when had that happened?) and there was only one other person in the shuttle now. Wrex sat at the squad bench along the side of the shuttle, his eyes downcast at the younger male on the floor.

"Well. You ready?" Wrex rumbled.

"Shhhh! Sleeping!" Pyjak hissed, raising her hand to her mouth. "Or I'll give you a big pile of shhh!"

Oh Aralakh's mighty plates... the little Pyjak really was like a parrot.

Wrex gave a short laugh. "Not any more he's not." Lifting his hand, Wrex gestured towards Grunt's head. The hair moved, and then vanished as the little kid shifted to look up at the krogan who had somehow taken a nap in a sitting position above her without crushing the kid.

Spotting his open blue eyes, a wide and gap-toothed grin flashed across the child's face. "Hi. I stayed awake for you. Watching your back... from the front." Her eyes were ringed with dark smudges and she blinked feebly as if fighting sleep at every second. Wobbling to her feet, the Pyjak pushed out from the shield of limbs Grunt has erected around her. Grunt almost grabbed her by the back of the shirt to keep her from heading to the open door of the shuttle, but there was the reassuring sounds of army and mobile forces on a launch pad from the outside.

"What time is it now?" Grunt blinked focus back into his eyes.

Wrex watched as the kid ventured to the ramp of the shuttle and quickly retreated away from the door back to Grunt as a passing turian mechanic startled her. "It's time to find a cot and have some downtime for the night. And if you can't find a cot, shove some salarian out of it. They only sleep for about two hours a day, they can get a few less." Standing up, Wrex's armor groaned from it's sheer weight. Or perhaps that was his old knees finally complaining of the stress.

Disoriented, Wrex looked up at his clan leader, clearly confused... and hungry.

"The way I see it, you completed your sector you had set out to do, and then picked up another squad's problems too. You did the work of two squads and brought everyone back alive... I'm sure Shepard would like to take credit for that somehow. I think you've earned some rest." The red eyes glinted slightly in the brilliant shuttle lights, stars popped in Grunt's own dazed vision.

What little his brain could comprehend, 'rest' was one of those things. Running on autopilot, Grunt picked up the kid with his forearm and tucked her against his hip as he rose to his feet.

"Meeting with Hackett at 800. And if you aren't there for that, then he comes after you." Wrex was leaning against the door to the shuttle, watching as Grunt plodded off. There was a knowing smirk on his face as the young krogan raised one hand to either flail away his message or perhaps a wave of acknowledgment.

Deciding he was more exhausted than hungry, Grunt shuffled through the headquarters into a neighborhood of buildings that had been shored up and stabilized to be used as crew quarters. Each cot in this crew quarters was meant for an adult human. An adult krogan _could _fit... if they didn't mind hanging off on all ends. It was already half way through the night shift and every soldier appeared to be dead to the world on their cots as Grunt meandered through the bunk house to find an empty space.

There was an empty cot between a turian with no clan marks and a human. Removing his pack and dumping it to the floor, Grunt set the kid on the edge of the cot. Her eyes were heavy and her head bobbled unsteadily as she fought against sleep. Pausing to unclip his heavy steel armor from his back and legs, the krogan shucked it and stretched his back with a series of pops as tendons snapped back into place. The only ones who bothered to sleep in their armor were the quarians... and since most of them had suit-geth now in there it had incurred a massive amount of teasing about 'sleeping with geth'.

… You would _not believe_ the mouths on some of those quarians when insulted. Make a sailor blush...

Turning back to the bed, Grunt paused when he saw the little Pyjak was already fast sleep. She had curled herself into a ball, knees drawn almost to her chin and her arms folded around them. He really couldn't fault the kid for being exhausted in the dead of the night. There was a muffled grunt from the kid as she battled with some unseen sleep terror and then fell silent again.

Fitting into the tiny cot when there is a limp and frail human kid already occupying it? Not happening. Bending the laws of physics was a salarian thing. Grunt settled on the ground next to the bed, putting his back against the cot so he could remain in a semi-alert sitting position. His eyes were so damn heavy the room kept flickering in and out of focus every time he blinked.

There was another whimper from the kid curled into a ball.

"Hey. Terrifying krogan is still right here. This time, I've got your back." Grunt reached his arm back, blindly finding a tendril of the baby soft hair. "But if you make me stay awake any longer, I'm going to trade you for a space hamster... at least you can eat those if you get hungry." At his his voice, Pyjak fell silent again with a look of deep thought over her sleeping face. It was way to serious an expression for such a little kid who's greatest concerns should be things like 'am I going to wear pants today, or shorts?'

Grunt's head fell back against the cot, half-asleep already as he gazed up at the rafter's in the exposed ceiling. He could just make out the light colored hair twisted around his fingers and the dark shadow over the child's sleeping face. His last conscious thoughts before drifting off weren't on his meeting with Hackett in the morning or even what would happen to the kid once she was assigned to temporary housing. Grunt's last thought before he went to sleep was_ 'So this is why Shepard fought so hard...'_ and then he was lost to his dreams.


	6. The No choice Decision

_I have moved into mah house! The cats are traumatized, things have been jumbled, I'm a mess of bruises, welts and scrapes so that it looks like I got into a brawl with a backhoe, and I was such a disgusting mess and desperate for a shower once I got in I jumped right in... only to realize I had no clue which box contained my towels and I was already soaking._

_Let us never again speak of the most awkward shower ever._

_Most of this chapter is written on my laptop batteries as I have no clue where my cords are for anything. I'll find them when I don't exist in a realm of pain (centered around my upper back). A family wedding occurred sometime in writing this mess (and the hangovers that followed), my sister is showing off her baby bump (I'MMA BE AN AUNT! *squeal*) and the cats continued to be terrified. That is my life this week._

* * *

_Meanwhile_

_Chapter 6 - No-choice Decision  
_

_5/28/12_

* * *

Soldiers are conditioned to know what time it is upon waking. Should something jolt a trained soldier awake, they can usually tell how long they've been asleep, what is attacking them, and where the nearest weapon is in less than five seconds. Krogan took this mastery to another level. When Grunt woke up, he immediately also knew the position of the child he had put on the cot 5 hours earlier.

And just a hint... she wasn't still in the cot.

There wasn't any sort of panic at this realization and it wasn't any great mystery where the kid was. The damn Pyjak was asleep in his lap now, like a young varren pup. Grunt wasn't sure when the little Pyjak had managed to move herself, and unarmored he should have felt the small human plant herself against him and pass out again. Sometime in the night the Pyjak had grabbed a handful of the neoprene suit that covered his chest, a tiny death grip probably keeping her anchored even if Grunt jumped to his feet.

Throughout the bunkhouse the wake-up call was dragging soldiers out of bed and to duty to make room for the night shift sleep cycle. Most gave a guttural sound and tried to drag themselves out of sleep by the power of machismo. A few rolled over and tried to go back to sleep (they would regret that. AM drill sergeant was a hardass who _loved_ to work over anyone who tried to sleep in). But out of all of the soldiers, only two really had Grunt's attention first. The flanking turian and human on bunks next to his own were staring curiously at the krogan with the dozing kid in his lap.

"What." Grunt growled.

The human immediately went back to minding his own business and gathering his personal effects back into his pack. However the turian wasn't quite so easily driven off. "That kid better not be a mid-snack meal you are saving for later."

There were two ways Grunt could go about this remark. The first being to deck the turian and rearrange his face. The other solution being to plant his foot right up the soldier's ass. Cool blue eyes narrowed in a calculating glare, trying to figure the best way to feed this turian his own fringe.

A small yawn and murmur came from the child who had been asleep just moments ago. "I'm hungry... can I eat the turian?" The Pyjak rolled over in his lap so she stared up at Grunt, rubbing her bleary eyes.

"I dunno... can you actually finish all that? Because don't expect me to help dispose of the evidence, they are disgusting to eat." Grunt snorted, a smirk spreading on his face.

Sitting upright, the child stared at the surprised turian soldier, giving him the kind of scrutiny that's saved for picking out delicious cakes. "Maybe I'm not that hungry. Cause that's too much really terrible food to eat." Her finger pointed directly at the soldier. "_May_be if I'm hungrier tomorrow..."

"Sounds like a plan." Grunt sneered, making a point to flash all his teeth in a decisively unfriendly grin.

"Hey!" The turian recoiled with a sense of confusion and dread. Krogans didn't even try to eat turians, not even back during their Krogan Rebellions. Now this tiny human kid was going to give it a shot? There was a hasty retreat as the soldier went to put as much distance between himself and the two hungry lunatics.

Stretching with both her arms straight in front of her, the kid gave a whine as she tried to work the ache out of her back. Sleeping on a krogan -even an unarmored one- was about as comfortable as sleeping on the hood of the Mako. Moderately more awake, the kid then gave a grunt that was identical to the soldiers who were attempting to force themselves awake by sheer will-power. "I'm awake. I slept in my shoes." The kid yawned again, looking down at her feet, which came to Grunt's knees while she sat in his lap.

"Yeah? That's good. Means you can get up faster." Grunt huffed, rising to his feet and dropping the kid onto the cot. Reaching down, he picked up the heavy steel plates for the greaves and began the laborious process of fastening his armor on. The natural plated armor was quickly hidden under tempered steel panels and neoprene padding.

Getting his armor on took almost ten minutes, working the battered pieces of gear back into place that had somehow survived both a Collector base and the Reaper extinction attempt. During that time, there was no sound at all from the Pyjak, who only sat quietly watching Grunt with an enraptured expression as he finished putting his gear on.

"What." Grunt didn't sound hostile as much as he sounded self-conscious now.

Gesturing towards the armor, the child was intrigued by the elaborate system of latches and pressurized seals. "I can't do that. I can't even tie my shoes." The Pyjak kicked one leg up to show off her shoes. The laces had been knotted by a serious set of double or triple knots, meaning the kid couldn't slip her shoes off short of cutting the laces off. It also meant the child didn't have to try tying them or tripping over her own feet.

Grunt caught her heel, lifting her leg higher and tipping the kid onto her back on the cot as he examined her shoe laces. There was a squeal of childish delight at the move. "Yeah, I see. Someone knotted them up good."

The giggles suddenly stopped and the little human girl looked up at him with the same clear blue eyes that he had, but this time there was an empty look in her eyes. "Momma did it. In case she wasn't there to tie them again. She made really good knots."

Ah. Well... Grunt now felt a bit stupid. Of course the kid's mother did it... how many humans went around tying the shoes of stray kids? And until a week ago it was pretty much humans only on this planet, it wasn't like there was a random asari commando or salarian infiltrator tying her shoes.

Reaching down to heft the child to his shoulder and his backpack to his other arm, Grunt said lamely, "Come on, lets go find something to eat."

The mess was for soldiers only. The civilian dining centers were in a different location away from the central HQ hub. While civilians and soldiers were currently on very closely monitored meal plans to make sure they weren't getting too much or too little food, the soldiers always got larger portions in order to keep up the energy on fighting off the remaining Reaper zombies. Grunt lifted his wrist at the entrance of the mess, letting his omni-tool communicate with the mess ID system in order to get his allocated meal. The system measured out a krogan sized portion of breakfast and dispensed it onto a tray.

Lifting his meal tray, consisting of chipped beef (humans had delicious game animals, Grunt had a feeling krogan would be ten times as huge if varren tasted that good), bread rolls, dehydrated fruit and some sort of white liquid called 'dairy' or 'milk' that it seemed only humans were in the habit of drinking.

"Here." Grunt tossed his cubed waxboard container of milk at Pyjak, who snatched it up and opened it with all the finesse of an awkward child (which is to say she spilled a good portion of it down her front).

It then struck Grunt that the kid didn't have an omni-tool or even an registered ID chip to allow her to get food in the same fashion. Grunt hadn't eaten anything since breakfast the previous day, and for a krogan doing some serious regeneration due to missile explosions and bullet damage it wasn't wise to give up any calories. There was one way to get extra food from the mess hall though... Grunt's krogan pride would have to take a little abuse to do it though.

At the head of the mess was the Mess Sergeant, Gardner himself. The man was about as durable as the freeze-dried MRE meals himself, and probably twice as disgusting tasting. Miranda's meddling was all over the situation on getting Gardner into this position, but it was apparent the man relished it and his enthusiasm for cooking was appreciated (his skill in it... made people regret their initial appreciation though).

The old human noticed Grunt immediately. After all, a giant silver krogan with a kid perched on his shoulder certainly stood out. "Grunt! Shepard's favorite krogan! This is that fella who dragged all Shepard's ship crew back from the Collectors." The cook was talking to a batarian who looked almost surprised he was being spoken to. Whether Grunt was 'Shepard's favorite krogan' or not was probably a matter Wrex might want to argue, but Grunt felt a thrill of pride at it.

Shifting slightly so the Pyjak moved to his other shoulder, Grunt rolled his head up at the kid. Gardner followed the motion, raising one eyebrow (eyebrows, such strange human things), "Ok, I'll bite, what's with the kid?"

"I'm hungry." The kid in question said.

Gardner perked up. It was rare someone told him they were hungry after seeing his food. "Well, I think I can do a thing or two about that... under the table, of course. She should be eating over at the civilian mess with their 'sensibilities' and 'napkins' and such. I don't blame her for wanting to be over on the working-class side." The man had an opinion about everything, usually the WRONG opinion because he never bothered to gather any sort of facts first. The Pyjak was over here because Grunt was far too reluctant to let someone take her over to the civilian side. Plus, his meeting with Hackett _seemed_ (to his sleep-addled brain at the time being) to be a reprieve for him to keep the small girl with him over the night. After that meeting though... it was a different matter.

Currently, Grunt didn't much care what Gardner's opinion was. Grunt only knew he now 'owed' the man for serving the kid a 'bit o' everything' so as to not be noticed by the inventory count at the end of the meal. The idea of 'owing one' revolted him... but it had been the best option available. Now at least the Pyjak wasn't eying his food with hungry stares.

Of course, that was pretty much because the kid had half a waffle stuffed in her mouth and was wearing a god-awful amount of maple syrup.

"... can these things go through a wash cycle?" Grunt asked Gardner, not taking his eyes off the sticky child lest she suddenly decide it was time to put her face in his neck again. The Pyjak was still dirt-encrusted from the day before with black filth under her nails, her hair a stringy mess, and smudges of what might have been Reaper blood still on her clothes.

Gardner raised both hands as if to ward off this questions. "Don't ask me. I just feed 'em."

Taking a seat to shovel down his rationed meal, Grunt felt irritation that he wasn't full by the time he had finished. Unfortunately human 'gratitude' at helping to save Earth didn't mean you got to gorge yourself silly, but at least he wasn't going hungry. The Pyjak didn't seem to care that what she was eating wasn't quite enough to fill her belly, the kid had obviously gone long periods between each regular meal. If the kid wasn't going to complain, there wasn't going to be any way Grunt was going to say anything either. When the small child had finished a rather mushy hash-brown slurry by chasing it around the tray with a spoon for a few minutes, she wiped her hands on her pants and looked up expectantly at Grunt.

Shoving the trays down towards a receptacle, Grunt stooped to pick up the kid only to hesitate and flinch. The Pyjak was a sticky, muddy mess of syrup and filth. Perhaps the reason Grunt had been getting so many odd stares earlier was because they weren't sure if it was a human kid or just a little mudball on his shoulder.

"Pyjak! Go to the head and wash up!" Grunt lifted his chin towards the exit of the mess.

The kid didn't move. In fact, she looked bewildered. "Head?"

"The..." Grunt paused. The marine word for 'bathroom' on the Normandy and other starships had been the 'head', which when Grunt though about it was kind of weird. Some kind of throwback to when bathrooms were put in odd places on the ship or something. "The bathroom! You reek, and not just in the normal human way."

Still confused, the child lifted a wrist to her face and sniffed. However she had long since become accustomed to her own smell. "Nu-huh."

Taking the kid by the hand, Grunt winced at the sticky little palm now grasping him. "No, really. You smell. You _smell bad_, and this is coming from someone who has rolled around in Ravager guts."

The door to the washroom was clouded slightly with steam as the troops tried to squeeze in a very fast shower in order to ration their hot water supply. "Here. Bathroom. Go... do your thing." Even just splashing around in the water would be an improvement for the dirty little kid.

Leaning heavily on the door, the Pyjak managed to open it a few inches and a cloud of steam puffed out into the hallway.

Then things got kinda fuzzy. Somehow the kid was latched to his knee, looking at the bathroom like it was full of Reapers. "That's the _boy's_ bathroom!" She hissed, alarmed.

"Yeah... and?" Grunt gave the door a suspicious look, unsure what the fuss was about.

"It's full of boys! I can't go in there!" Humans were so bizarre...

Gritting his teeth, Grunt huffed, "FINE, lets go fine the female bathroom." Snarling in frustration, he grabbed her sticky little hand and towed her further down the hall to a bathroom with a similar cloud of mist and steam escaping around the edges of the door.

"Go shower."

This also seemed to confuse the kid. Shower? A five year old? At that age they were still splashing around in the bath like it was an Olympic pool.

"Can't you come in with me?" The child's voice had a note of distress at the thought of being without her giant krogan hero.

Grunt sighed. "You won't go into the male bathroom, but you now want me to go into the female one? No! I got yelled at enough about that back on the Normandy." Grunt winced at the memory, rubbing at his earspots.

* * *

"Grunt, that is the female facilities." EDI's voice chimed from the wall as Grunt exited the elevator and turned left.

"Yeah... and?" Grunt rumbled, a scowl firmly in place. Shepard had really run her troops through the gauntlet this time as she sent them through a Blood Pack stronghold and biotically destroyed anything that dared approach her... Grunt had taken 'proximity' damage from the Vorcha gore and fighting through the base bathed in sticky Vorcha residue wasn't exactly pleasant.

"The men's facilities are on the other side of the hallway." EDI insisted.

Looking down the hallway, Grunt spotted the other door and gave a dismissive shrug. "So? This one is closer."

There was a long pause (ie. A few seconds for EDI was long) in which the AI seemed to be contemplating calling Shepard for backup. "Grunt, were you not imprinted with any values of 'privacy'?"

Tthe krogan began to work the sticky catches of his armor as he padded down the hall. With a jeer he said, "Value in ones privacy? A little bit hypocritical of you, when you see _everything_ that goes on in this ship."

The argument seemed to throw EDI for another long pause (a single second this time), and the AI retorted with, "You are simply going to continue to use the female restroom until reprimanded by Shepard or forcefully ejected from the facilities, aren't you?"

Grunt only grunted.

"Mr. Monroe is going to want to see this..." The response was so soft, Grunt almost didn't catch it.

What he DID catch though was a cloud of humid steam when the bathroom door opened. The shower was running hot and in the mist a small figure scrubbed a layer of orange Vorcha gore. Standing in the hall with the door opened created a vacuum which sucked the hot moist air out of the tiny bathroom and revealed the mist draped figure in full. Jack was gritting her teeth in frustration as she attempted to scrub down her lank form with venom. Her back was turned towards the door and from the scar tissue at the base of her neck down her spine to her ankles she was covered in tattoos. "Fucking vorcha. Don't even have the dignity to not splatter all over everything when they die. Fuck... Vorcha stains never come off."

Grunt's instincts were screaming at him in two different voices: One was the voice of the ancients, warning him that bigger and badder predators ate krogans for lunch – the other was the voice of the challenge trying to encourage him into the bathroom and out of the hall.

_'Aralakh's sweaty quad! Get out of here! Bigger predator hasn't notice you yet!' _ Half of Grunt's mind wailed.

The other half was a chatter with chaotic glee._ 'I've never fought a biotic before...I wonder how Jack measures up against Shepard.'_

The sudden change in temperature from the open door finally caught Jack by surprise. The convict whirled around, biotic energy spilling from her body as if she was a fountain of it. However once she turned around, both sides of Grunt's brain fell silent and one stupid voice was left in their wake. _'Humans sure are squishy.'_

Jack didn't even wait for Grunt to stop staring at her tits. She pretty much hit him with the force of a biotic train and then attempted to drown him in the shower head spray. Grunt retaliated by attempting _not _to drown. At least krogan are remarkably hard to kill. By the time Shepard had burst into the bathroom to stop the fight, it had ceased to be a 'fight' and was more or less a beatdown.

* * *

… His ears hand rung for a week from the biotic beatdown Jack slammed on him. Anyone able to pummel you that badly deserves to be listened to. There had been other fights of course (one in the hangar bay, one in a prothean ruin, and one in the elevator that had disabled the device for hours), but none of the biotic vs krogan battles had taken him by such surprise as that first one. A lesson had been learned... stay the hell away from the female room.

It was also a lesson only known between Grunt, Jack, EDI and Shepard... everyone else was to never EVER know about 'that one time the krogan got his ass kicked by a 'naked biotic girl'.

He would never live it down.

"I'm _not_ going into the female bathroom!"

The Pyjak stamped her foot, looking frustrated but also like she very much had to go find a toilet.

This was not something Grunt was going to cave to though. "No! You survived the apocalypse on your own, and now you are telling me you can't use the bathroom on your own?"

"Grunt?" A cautious and cultured voice that rang with so many memories of 'home' came from behind him. Turning his head slightly, his peripheral vision caught the sight of Miranda in her typical spotless white uniform.

"Miranda." Grunt nodded. The Ex-Cerberus officer had been a hard-ass bitch... but she had done it for all the right reasons. Shepard respected her (though 'respect' and 'like' came at two different points) and proven that loyalty didn't always go to the top bidder but to those who worked on deserving it. The woman had become a sort of liaison to Wrex during the defense of Earth, helping the krogan keep his forces organized and working with the various other races without violence. Aside from Admiral Hackett himself, Miranda Lawson was now the most respected human the krogan had left on this planet.

"I had thought when Warlord Wrex said you had a pyjak with you, he meant an actual pyjak, not a child." Miranda's eyes were focused on the kid with curiosity. "How'd this happen?"

Grunt felt frustration build in a reservoir that was normally reserved for rage... but the Ex-Cerberus operative had earned more respect than that. Instead, Grunt settled on a response that had been the favored quip of EDI... sarcasm. "Well... when two people apply for the Rite of Honor together and drink plenty of ryncol-,"

Miranda's cool expression dissolved into disbelief and a bit of amusement. "Right, I get that part. But why is she still with you?" Extending a hand to the child, Grunt watched as the little Pyjak seized a few of Miranda's fingers and shook them vigorously. Handshake. Even small humans knew that gesture.

This was the question that Grunt had no answer to and didn't want to think about. Why was the kid still with him? By all accounts she should be passed off to someone like Miranda to watch. In fact, Grunt was due to meet with Hackett in twenty minutes to debrief on yesterday's entire fiasco. He just didn't have time for kids, not even small children that seemed to aspire to grow up into krogan some day.

Grunt had opened his mouth, loathe to do it but to ask Miranda to take the Pyjak when the woman spoke up first. "Your hair is a mess, dear. I bet you haven't had a proper bath in months. Would you like some help?" Miranda was surprisingly maternal. It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise though, Grunt realized. If there is a teenage girl willing to go on the run for life from her father to rescue an infant that she will only see in photos from then on... that takes guts as well as a mother's heart.

Suddenly shy, the kid nodded and smiled, showing off her missing front tooth.

"I need to go. Hackett is going to be waiting." Grunt's scowl was back in place and he was glancing down the hall as if he expected the Admiral to say 'fuck waiting' and just come to him instead.

"Wait!" There was a high pitched wail of alarm and the Pyjak had suddenly attached herself to his shins. "No! No nononono!" With each 'no' her voice grew in pitch until she had reached a tone only heard by dogs and varren.

Grunt would have stumbled if the kid had weighed as much as a krogan child. As it was he barely felt her weight. "'No' what? 'No', you don't want me to go in?"

"Noo~oo!" Pyjak cried, her forehead impacting against Grunt's knee in a headbutt.

"'No', you want me to stay outside here?"

"Noooo~oo!" The child's voice rose in volume. Again, the kid tried to headbutt his kneecap. Grunt barely intercepted her small fragile skull with a meaty palm to prevent her from braining herself on steel armor.

"Damn it, Pyjak, stop doing that and make up your mind! I can't go in the female room, but you don't want me to _not _to come with?" Twisting around to look at Miranda, Grunt was a little confused at her expression. She looked... regretful? Pensive? Murderous? Lawson was one human who was nearly impossible to read, and Grunt was by no means a master at human expressions.

"What if Grunt goes to find you some clean clothes while we clean you up? You can't put your dirty ones back on, can you?" Miranda knelt, putting one white clad knee to the cement floor carefully.

The small girl didn't seem to have thought of this and looked at her filthy close with consideration. "N-no." She admitted, her normal small voice returning.

In disbelief, Grunt's eyes narrowed at Miranda. "Did you just volunteer me to –,"

Again, Miranda interrupted his glowering tone with a low and clipped voice of her own, "I'm acting as krogan and human liaison. Right now you are acting as this child's... battlemaster, are you not? She's obviously taken with you, and removing her from your... ah... 'guidance' would be as if she has just lost whatever odd sort of family you represent to her." The woman tossed her head slightly, a tightening of her expression in what might have been a smirk, "I have humanities best interests at heart, remember?"

"And what about my interests?" Grunt rumbled, taking an advancing step towards the woman in an attempt to intimate her.

Miranda didn't so much as bat an eye at this. "Please," she gave a dismissive huff, "You'll still have your guns and your allotted time to go fill things full of bullets. You'll still be fed soldier's rations. What other interests do you have to take up your time at HQ? Last I heard, you didn't have any hobbies. That is... besides glaring at people who wonder why you simply sit around and glare."

God dammit! Grunt's complete lack of any interest other than fighting on board the Normandy had finally come back to bite him in the tail!

The Pyjak released Grunt's knee finally, her forehead a slightly pink from the bludgeoning she had given herself against his armor. However her release wasn't a sign she had given up yet. Apparently the child wanted to make sure he wasn't going to escape by climbing him like a giant mobile mountain. Reaching up and catching the underside of the backpack, the child jumped and dangled from the lower portion of it. Climbing up his armored plates, she was insistent upon perching herself at Grunt's shoulder and with sticky little hands reaching down latch onto the ridges of his crest. Now the kid was pretty much _glued_ to him.

This was a fight that there was _no winning_. "Still a hard-assed bitch." Grunt grumbled, glaring sideways at Miranda.

Miranda clicked her tongue in disapproval. "Language. She's still a child." However, the woman made no move to argue the fact.

Grunt instead repeated it in krogan standard tongue, knowing the kid didn't have an omni-tool or a translation VI. The kid was always listening and parroting Grunt, there was a high chance 'hard-assed bitch' was now a part of her vocabulary. Here's hoping it never cropped up an inopportune times... like in front of Admiral Hackett.

Reaching up, Grunt tried to detach the Pyjak from his head. "So... what's the plan now?"

Holding out her arms, Miranda took the kid from Grunt after a moment of struggling. The Pyjak had a grip like a Volus on a credit chit. "Now... we go get her cleaned up, you go meet with Hackett, and later we'll have a chat about 'how to care for children' – the krogan edition." Putting the little girl on the ground, Miranda knelt to untie the knots on the kid's shoes.

"Is it like Shepard and her fish?" Grunt asked.

The look Miranda gave him implied he had serious brain damage.

"Maybe Jack is who you want to talk to. Don't use Shepard as a role model on this. That aquarium only turned into death row for fish once she bought them." Returning to the knots, Miranda tried to wiggle the laces free. However her elegant (useless) human nails were too thin to slice through the laces and too flat to poke through each knotted loop to loosen it.

After a few moments, the kid got antsy and shifted away. Reaching out, the Pyjak leaned out to tug on Grunt's gauntlet, stopping him from leaving and trying to tow the massive krogan closer to the bathroom. It was a futile effort, as Grunt held his ground like a wall.

Grunt sighed, feeling as if this day (only 9:00 am) would never end. He leaned down, putting one knee on the ground to bring himself to her level. "What now? I'm still not going in there."

Grasping at Grunt's knee, the child lifted one of her tightly laced shoes to him. "Knots are hard to do. Can you get them off?" The triple knotted shoe was inescapable to the kid and it had tried Miranda's patience.

Twisting a finger under the laces, Grunt tested the knots and found a weak point where all three knots joined together. A heavy claw managed to twist the canvas laces apart and after a few moments the laces were undone. Now free, the kid gave a triumphant little laugh, more like one of Grunt's deep barks of laughter than a childish giggle. The Pyjak padded back to the bathroom on bare feet.

"You better be here when I'm done!" The child's voice carried an air of authority as if her words were a command rather than a fearful childish request.

"And if I'm not?" Grunt shoved himself back to his feet.

Stomping on the ground, soft pink feet made a slapping noise against the pavement. "I... I..." The kid's lip set firm in a tiny scowl. "You have my shoes! I need those, you have to come back." Pointing at the dirty little shoes in his hands, the Pyjak ducked into the open door under Miranda's arm.

Grunt looked down at his hands, surprised he had held onto the children's shoes. "Human footwear was obviously designed as a punishment," he said, wondering if shoes were designed just for the sole purpose of taking off and giving to someone else to hold as some sort of complicated family ritual.

Miranda gave a low laugh. "Oh, you have no idea."


	7. Childish

_GAH! I have been meaning to update, but there is gardening to do! If I have so much as a half-ass excuse to roll around in the dirt, I swear I will. But it's too hot to garden today. I still have all the same electrical problems and I will for another full week. After that, everything will be fixed (but then I have to go to small claims court and bash someone's head in). Oh boy, the fun never stops around here. *glare*_

_This chapter has an M rating for Jack's foul mouth. Yes, even when trying to censor herself... she STILL has a foul mouth.  
_

* * *

_Meanwhile  
Chapter 7 – childish  
6/11/12_

* * *

Admiral Hackett was – in Grunt's mind - a much older and male version of Shepard. Play by the rules and no one gets hurt – Screw with the rules and the old man would bring hell itself down upon your head. Rumor has it that during the First Contact War, then Second Lieutenant Steven Hackett had made a turian captain back down after saying only three words to him.

Grunt had money riding that those three words were, "I have nukes." The opposing argument in the bet was it would have been something insightful, like "Consider your losses" or even "Look behind you" as Hackett's command had rolled in to the system. Whatever the old man had said, no one ever doubted this story was true. Hackett could silently stare down a raging krogan and make him have a second thought on what he was doing with his life.

Now the young krogan male sat in Hackett's office, waiting for the Admiral to finish a report he was feeding into the QED communicator. Earth still had quite a few Quantum Entanglement Devices still operational and the Admiral was sending regular reports to Palaven, Sur Kesh, Tuchanka, and even the single device still operational on Thessia. However there was only one QED comm that Grunt cared about... and it's return signal was still inactive. Inactive... meant NOT dead.

"Has the Normandy reported in yet?" Grunt asked, simply not caring if this was a discipline session.

Hackett's wrinkled face was drawn in a narrowed scowl as he finally finished his task and turned to face Grunt. "No. And when there is a report, it still has to go through proper channels before details will be released to the general-," the old man sighed, suddenly losing his wind and some of the stiffness of his spine dissolved slightly, "- when the Normandy reports in, procedure is going right to hell and there will be parades in the street whether I follow procedure or not. You will be among the first to know, Urdnot Grunt. _But don't push it."_ The old man gave Grunt a look that would have had a lesser non-pure krogan suddenly decide to go into chartered accounting rather than take his risks with the army.

Setting aside the paperwork, Hacket pulled out a chair from the battered desk and seated himself across from Grunt, his wrinkled and scarred face a twisted scowl again. With a serious glare, the discipline session that Grunt had been anticipating began. The reprimand that followed was a cut and dry typical verbal reprimand. Bad Grunt, bad krogan! Go to your room, no dinner! Well... perhaps not that kind of reprimand, but Grunt was restricted to HQ access for the remainder of the week. No missions and if an emergency went up requiring him to exit the perimeter fence he was to be an accompaniment to a team only, no single missions.

Strange thing about the reprimand was the fact the punishment was so light. Simple confinement to the entire base, no written record and only a verbal reprimand was something reserved for someone who had skipped drill or gotten into a disruptive argument... not someone who had taken a child into a live fire zone.

With all the tact of a raging bull, Grunt simply asked why.

"What do you think Shepard would have done in that case?" Hackett asked, his sharp eyes made Grunt feel like he was staring down a Maw.

"She..." Grunt cut off. Shepard would have done exactly what Grunt did... only perhaps she would have taken Gilga with and said _'screw that, lets do something completely insane!'._ Grunt had grown so used to operating with humans, turians, and asari that the young krogan had adapted his fighting method to protect the physically weaker squad mates while he drew fire and allowed his team to effectively pick off the enemies. It worked with Shepard's team because by the point Grunt was taking actual damage someone was laying down suppressive fire for him to take cover for a breather. Usually Shepard herself was already at the point he was ducking behind with a tube of medigel ready for him and once he was patched up both would charge straight back into the fray. In the defense of the civilians, Grunt found he was using the exact same tactic that Shepard had pounded into his skull.

"She would have brought more missiles, for one." Grunt finished his thoughts.

"That goes without saying, boy." Hackett gave him a quick proud smile.

"What if all the forces return to their homeworlds before my week probation is up? Do I have to stay on Earth?" Grunt cocked his head.

Hackett frowned deeply. "However long it takes to get the relays rebuilt, it won't be done in a week."

One of Grunt's hearts skipped a beat, forcing his other one to pick up the slack. "Rebuilt? That's... bad." Bad didn't begin to cover it. "So they are broken?"

The Admiral looked a bit startled. "Broken? That's one way of putting it. Because they are just _gone_. Salarian scout forces have found limited debris suggesting the Charon relay blew up and fed all it's energy along it's path. Wrex had a comm link with Tuchanka today and it appears to be the same over there as well. From our reports, _all _the relays are gone."

Krogan were not known for their math skills, and inside Grunt's head numbers started waging a war trying to even comprehend the resources and tech needed to rebuild the relays. Okeer's imprinting took one look at the situation and basically packed it's bags to the deeper parts of Grunt's brain so it didn't have to do the math for him.

"Great... it's going to take Shepard forever to get back." Grunt grumbled, his brain deciding that the length of time it would take to rebuild relays was_ 'a lot' _and the amount of resources was somewhere just above _'GAH!'._

Hackett gave the krogan a rather fond but wan smile. "Then you'll have to pick up the slack that she's left behind. Think you are up to it, boy?"

A small section of Grunt's mind, now disgusted by the sheer amount of math he had just made his brain do, started wondering why all the old men called him 'boy'. "Finally!" Grunt rolled his shoulders, popping his neck as if preparing for combat. "Did Shepard even leave me any enemies she didn't already finish off or get to join her side?"

Hackett gestured to a pile of papers on the lopsided desk. "Take your pick, we have no shortage of tasks here. Once you are off probation, that is."

Grunt reached for the pile of dataplates, only to realize he still had two tiny little shoes clenched in his fists and they had been since he entered the room. Slightly dazed, Grunt put the shoes on the desktop and stared at them in awe. The little human child's feet were so small that both shoes could fit into one of his palms, but not so tiny that his holding them would have gone unnoticed. Grunt cast a look up at Hackett.

"I wasn't going to ask." Hackett said simply.

Shuffling through the papers and dataplates, Grunt found he was actually going to have to read the full comprehensive report to figure out what he was getting into. Picking the first one he saw would wind up with him on 'clean up duty' more, or even something like 'supply run'. Boring. Grunt made sure to carefully read the objectives to find something that suited him. Looked like he was going to be stuck in here for at least twenty minutes while he reviewed all the missions.

With Hackett just on the other side of the desk, preparing some dataplate paperwork of his own, Grunt felt he had to have a question answered once and for all. "Admiral."

"Yes, Grunt?"

"Is it true you got a turian captain to surrender during the First Contact War? And you did it with only three words?" This would end the argument once and for all... and possibly rake in a few credits for lucky gamblers.

Hackett's eyes grew distant as he recalled. "It was more of a temporary cease fire for both sides to go and retrieve our wounded."

"What three words did you say?" Grunt leaned forward, palms on the desk.

"I told him, 'This war is pointless'. It was four words... I'm not sure why everyone insists it was always three." Hackett had a crafty half smile on his face.

"... I like my version better." Grumbling, Grunt went back to filing through the paperwork to find a task that suited him.

"Most people do." Hackett chuckled.

* * *

Grunt left Hackett's office with an assignment that seemed to completely disregard the whole 'probation' thing. He was now tasked with searching and retrieving survivors on a on-call basis (which seemed to be ALWAYS on call), Grunt was now leading a small team consisting of a little bit of everything, or as the team had taken to calling themselves 'N7 Special Task force', but they were in no way related to the human N7 program. They were simply gun wielding maniacs who were good at working in groups and killing Reapers.

Basically... they were the _best_ kind of maniacs. And Grunt was now their boss.

Since the N7 Special Task Force was an on-call team, that meant that the rest of his time was spent stuck in HQ. There was surprisingly no mention at all of the Pyjak. Perhaps Hackett thought Miranda was going to take the kid somewhere, or that the child would just attach herself to a human family. Whatever the case, someone dropped the ball and left Grunt in charge of a fragile human child... _again._

Grunt's omni-tool chimed, his N7 assignment starting up already... or that his what he thought. Instead of an on-call assignment, Grunt had only one instruction. _**'Stop moving, you giant bag of dicks!'**_ Rarely had Grunt's scheduler been rude to him (though there had been that one time the schedule told all soldiers to _'be at the LZ in five monsoons'..._ the entire group tried to figure out how many monsoons were local to London seasonally before the auto-update corrected it to 'minutes').

Stopping in the hallway, Grunt stared at his omni-tool for an updated set of instructions. Now the command said _**'Standby, tube lizard' **_and sat at that. He didn't have to wonder who was feeding him commands. Either it was Jack, or it was someone with a death wish. Or it was Jack with a death wish, but... that was just being redundant.

"Found 'ya!" Rounding the corner of the narrow hall, Jack had a metaphorical thundercloud following her and a literal biotic cloud. The woman was pissed.

Grunt loved it when Jack was furious. She was more fun.

Fun, however, was going to have to wait. Because tucked under one of Jack's slender arms was a tiny child who looked bewildered.

Grunt protested as Jack lifted the kid to him, "What? That's not mine. Mine is filthy, and annoying. Miranda should be dealing with the Pyjak, I don't need another one... unless this is the new Earth currency. Small children."

"You are going to need a hell of a bigger man-purse if it is. Now shut up and take her!" Jack snorted. Despite the sharp words, Jack held the kid carefully and was obviously censoring herself as she had yet to yell 'fuck' or anything at him yet (as was her typical greeting).

"Erd-not!" The child wailed, "Shoes!" Blinking in surprise, Grunt noticed the long blond hair was in a strange woven rope-like tail behind the kid's head and she was wearing what appeared to be a salarian bodysuit with the arms and legs rolled up into thick rings around her tiny limbs. The only thing that clearly defined this child as Grunt's little Pyjak was the brilliant clear blue eyes and the wide and gap-toothed grin she gave him. And the complete lack of shoes (still held in one of the krogan's fists).

Leaning forward, Grunt took a tentative sniff at the child. She smelled like the Pyjak (and like a lot less of the other things that she had earlier), and had the same lack of fear around him that the kid normally did. Grunt had never seen such a transformation from ungroomed to groomed like this before. On board the Normandy Miranda was always well groomed, Jack never bothered, and Shepard kept a spit-polish look at all times (and should that fail, she had a helmet to hide behind).'

Reaching out, Grunt took the Pyjak from Jack. The child clung to his shoulder, sitting on his arm. Grunt lowered his crest and carefully bumped his forehead into her shoulder in greeting. The kid gave a gleeful chirp, leaning back to get the leverage to knock her own soft skull against his jaw.

"Yeah, we're going to have to have a talk about headbutting." Jack snorted, shoving her hands into her back uniform pockets. "The kid didn't want to wear a salarian uniform, apparently... Miranda said the kid headbutt a salarian as he tried to fit one to her."

Grunt cocked his head at the kid, working the canvas shoes over her tiny feet and twisting inelegant knots into the laces. "How'd she manage that? She's barely knee high to me."

Jack grinned. "Oh, I didn't say she got him in the head. She nailed the salarian right in the... the dangly bits." Jack quickly censored herself.

The massive krogan froze, a child hanging off his shoulder with a pleased look on her face. "She- what?"

Jack rocked back onto the heels of her boots, a smirking. "What can I say? The kid has a quad. At least it isn't a biting phase. The cheerleader had to take the ensign to medbay after the surprisingly crippling blow he was dealt."

The biotic's smirk was contagious, and Grunt found himself grinning down at the kid. "Did you drop him?"

Pyjak nodded.

"She dropped him like a bad habit. And speaking of _bad habits:_ Lawson suggests -as do most of the men- that you have her get rid of that phase as soon as possible." Jack nudged Grunt in the side, coaxing him to match her swaggering gait down the hall.

"Phases?"

"Human kids do a lot of sh-...stuff they aren't supposed to do. Mostly because they don't know jack at that age... no offense Squirt." Of course, despite Jack's warning, the kid looked pretty offended. Regardless, the biotic continued. "The most normal phases are biting, hitting, kicking, and it gets worse from there. But headbutting people when you walk around at hip level... that we are going to have to work on."

"Momma said not to hit... and I didn't." The Pyjak said, affronted. "That mister was weird! I didn't like him." Tucking her face in Grunt's neck to hide, the kid returned to clinging.

Grunt only shrugged. He couldn't see anything wrong with headbutting a salarian (… in the groin, yeah it was a bit of a low blow, but when that's all you can reach it's fair game). "Next time, leave it to me to do that. All it takes is one salarian wearing armor and you've given yourself a brain injury."

There was a grunt from the kid as she left her face hidden.

Jack seemed to have a destination in mind and was guiding Grunt into the civilian district of the HQ compound. Suspicious, Grunt tightened his grasp on the child. "Why are we over here? This is the boring side." Grunt rumbled.

"Feh, I know. But it's also the best place to look for the little Squirt's parents." Jack returned her hands to her back pockets.

At the mention of parents, the Pyjak lifted her head from Grunt's neck, her eyes darting around the room with a lost sense of urgency. However no one came forward upon spotting the kid, and a few moments, she returned to clinging to Grunt. A wide palm lifted to rest on the kid's back... strangely hump-less and soft.

… was it wrong to feel happy that she didn't find anyone here?

* * *

Moderately surprised when Jack stuck with him, the pissy biotic registered slightly lower on the 'absolute terror' scale than Grunt did (which ran on a scale of _'fuzzy kittens' _all the way up to _'OMFG THRESHER MAW'_). Thus the duty of questioning civilians fell to her. With Grunt looming behind the tattoo-mapped woman, most civilians were too terrified to give more than simple 'yes' and 'no' answers before retreating from the terrifying duo.

They had given up trying to find the Pyjak's family or even anyone who had seen the kid before. London had just been too large a of a place before the Reapers came for everyone to be able to recognizance one another. Jack was now leaning on a soldier to speed along the process to get the kid assigned an omni-tool ID so she could get regular meals. The soldier was more than an little intimidated of the slight biotic (proving he had survival skills beyond that of a rock) and was doing all he could to speed the process along. Grunt leaned against the wall and boosted the child to rest across his hump instead of seated on his arm. The kid scrambled up the silver armor, seating herself and dangling her legs over his shoulders. The effect made it look like Grunt was now wearing a small child for a (very fashionable) hat.

"Hehehe!" The childish giggle didn't come from the Pyjak, as the kid was now prone to giving oversized barks of laughter much like Grunt's own. Instead their was a stray child, not attached to the leg of an adult and there was no parent looming nearby ready to snatch the kid back to safety. 'Stray' was an apt term, as it seemed to also cover the Pyjak's position as well. The little stray kid had exited from his hiding place of a vent duct system to stare up at awe at the Pyjak fearlessly perched on Grunt's back.

Both children chirped 'hi' at each other (such a bizarre human greeting) and the Stray was now staring up at Grunt with the same amazement that the Pyjak first had at watching him fire his shotgun into a horde of zombies. The kid didn't speak to Grunt, just continued his slightly gap-mawed stare at the tall krogan.

A second and third Stray had emerged from the milling crowd of civilians. The group of them were all the same unkempt hair and smudged faces that the Pyjak had sported earlier. Joining the first Stray, the three off them now goggled up at Grunt.

"What." Grunt shuffled awkwardly. The staring was starting to unnerve him. The small krogan children in the female camp had never been this fascinated by him before. In fact, other than one of the kids trying to play 'Tackle the Varren' with Grunt's spine, they had all stuck close to their mothers.

At Grunt's bark, two more children peered out from under at table at the sound, their eyes lighting upon the krogan and before he really knew what was happening a small group of awed children was around him.

Grunt was not afraid of anything, and give it a gun and he still didn't fear it. But right now he was worried he was going to squash one of the frail little human beings. "Jack... there's an infestation of kids in here. What do you bait human traps with, that... peanut butter and jelly substance?"

"The most delicious subu-subat...thing." The Pyjak remarked, bracing both hands on Grunt's crest to look down at the kids on the floor.

"I was being sarcastic when I said small children were the new Earth currency." Jack remarked, an amused sneer on her pained lips. "You're like the krogan version of the pied piper of whatever."

Grunt had two kids vying for his attention, and the Pyjak still perched on his hump. "Pied... what?"

Jack returned with a small and basic omni-tool, gesturing for the Pyjak to extend her wrist. "Some mythical BS. A man with a flute lures a bunch of human kids away from a village after exterminating a whole bunch of rats. The village refuses to pay him, so he takes the kids. He's like the most successful kidnapper ever."

It sounded to Grunt like a krogan tale. All it was missing was the point where the Piper returned luring a Thresher Maw into the clan to wipe it out. And also missing a few dozen brawls. Other than that, it seemed way too morbid for a human tale.

"And you humans tell this story to your _kids?_" Grunt rumbled in disbelief. "Then why do they all grow up to be such –," At this Grunt jammed a thumb at the civilians, "-rather than like-" to end it, Grunt pointed at Jack in a tactless manner.

Jack punched him in the unarmored part of his arm, scuffing her knuckles as if she had punched a brick wall. "Because those stories are around into terrifying kids into behaving, not to terrify them into roid-rages."

The Pyjak apparently had enough of sitting stationary on Grunt's back, and climbed down his shoulder and arm as if he were just another piece of oversized furniture. Once reaching the ground, the children scattered to the four winds and the Pyjak chased them. Grunt had no clue what was going on, was this some sort of territorial human behavior?

Even at five years old, the blonde haired child was faster than some of the older kids and reached one of them as he tried to ring around a group of civilians. "Got you! You're It!" The Pyjak announced, turning on her heel and bolting in the opposite direction. This child she had touched came to a jerking halt and eyed the various fleeing kids. Thus he began to chase and pursue as well.

"It?" Grunt's blue eyes flicked over to Jack.

"It's 'Tag'. You know... kid's game. Also... sort of like that game we made up on the Normandy with sticky proximity bombs." Jack leaned against the wall next to Grunt, watching the kids.

The 'Tag' Jack was talking about was something Garrus started. The turian would fire a proximity mine onto a mercenary enemy, but he gave it plenty of timer and programmed it so that the target hit by the bomb couldn't trigger it. As the soldier realized he'd been hit, they would try to approach the other troopers to get it off. Thus the other mercs would flee the marked soldier, until the point where the timer ran out or the soldier caught up to them.

Boom.

Good times.

The game the children played was a lot more awkward and less urgent than the one on the Normandy. If one of the children was too slow to catch any of the others, one of them would tag-team to take their place if the game started to lull. The crowd of children had grown yet again, this time non-Strays left the legs of their parents to join in. Any disapproval the parents might have had at the krogan and biotic super-soldier supervising the game was pretty much moot. After all, who else to watch the kid's safety than two of the strongest soldiers?

"I wonder if my kids were like this when they were this small." Jack said, her lips drawn.

"_Your_ kids?" Grunt performed a double-take, his eyes darting down to stare bluntly at Jack's abdomen as if she were about to pop out yet another of 'her kids'.

Jack was quick to cuff him on the back of the skull. "F-..." The sound died on her lips when the little Pyjak rounded Grunt to hide behind his bulk for cover. Instead, the biotic lifted her omni-tool and a few second's later the device on Grunt's wrist chimed with a message.

_**'Fucker.'**_

Recognizing a perfectly good opportunity to piss off Jack (and get away with it), Grunt grinned. "What was that? I couldn't hear you."

The omni-tool chimed again. This time with such a profanity laced message Grunt felt he should shake Jack's hand or give her an award. Instead, he burst out laughing as if Jack had just told the greatest joke ever. And not many jokes end with _**'and I'll shove it right up your ass, motherfucker!'**_, but it was still the best. Theirs was a bizarre 'friendship' forged after nearly being drown in a shower and some time after Grunt nearly crushed her into the bulkhead. Any fights that broke out between the two of them after that were purely 'friendly' fights.

Any furniture that was broken during those 'friendly' fights was just 'friendly' furniture being smashed.

One of the children skidded around Jack, nearly crashed into Grunt's leg and upon spotting the Pyjak lurking behind him suddenly changed targets to her. The blond gave a surprised exhalation of breath and took three steps towards the kid who was 'It', leaning her weight back.

Grunt snatched her off the ground before she could headbutt the other child for surprising her. "Hey. _No._" His voice was deep, and even a child understood that doing it anyway would result in _bad things_.

"But it's not hitting." The Pyjak seemed surprised, even a little hurt at the reprimand. Children never liked being scolded and that seemed to cross species. At least human kids didn't go into bloodrage when upset like krogan kids did.

"Does this look like I care?" Grunt's face was deadpan. "_Not_ for play. Headbutting is for fights and arguments only."

There was a dull accepting grunt from the kid, who dropped the krogan's gaze to stare at her dangling toes. Putting the Pyjak down on the floor, Grunt nudged her forehead with the blunt edge of his first finger, causing the kid to rock backwards. Her eyes darted up to his, and seeing the slight twist of his scaly mouth, the kid gave a slight grin back. The reprimand had been 'not in play', but he certainly had not told her never to do it again. Still grinning crookedly with her slightly too large bottom teeth showing, the kid returned to play.

"I saw what you did there." Jack was smirking, but her eyes were more pleased than spiteful.

"No you didn't." Grunt said, his eyes not leaving the little white-blonde haired child as she darted back into play.

Jack's grin was all teeth, much like Grunt's own smug smiles. "Sounds like our little baby tube lizard has a soft spot."

Grunt snorted. "Find it." Shoving a hand out, Grunt caught Jack in the bare stomach, fingers extended to poke at her soft belly. The woman gave a surprised and choked sound as she slammed a biotic barrier up.

"And Shepard never believed me when I said you were ticklish. You humans are soft all over." Grunt sneered.

His omni-tool chirped. _**'Fucker.'**_

There was a childish exclamation as the Pyjak was finally caught during the game of tag. The kid was red in the face and breathing heavily, the stuffy bunker was a little too hot to keep dashing about like frantic varren for their game. Instead of running after the other children, Pyjak turned and charged into Grunt's knee, wrapping both her arms around his leg.

"What?" Grunt lifted his leg, now dangling the kid in the air a few inches off the ground.

"It." Pyjak huffed, her bangs flattened to her forehead with sweat.

"Yeah?"

"You're It." She clarified.

"Why you damn little-," Grunt hadn't seen that coming. Without any warning, Grunt swung a backhand swat at Jack, catching her in the shielded abdomen again. The biotic barrier crackled and chattered but held under his 'tag'. "Now she's It. Jack likes kids, she'll play with them."

_**'Fucker!' **_Omni-tool chattered again, so fast that Grunt had a feeling the biotic had made a macro to send that message to him upon a single button command.

"No tag-backs!" Pyjak informed Jack.

The krogan only stood there grinning broadly at his biotic teammate, a child perched in his arms and completely 'immune' to anything Jack may decide to do to him with the shield of children watching. The woman gave him a furious glare before being absorbed into the game. It was great.

Jack swore revenge. It made it even better.


	8. Temper Tantrums

_Things I have done this week!~ Stained wood and put up new door trimming. Stripped a deck (burlesque deck, but I … oh wait, wrong stripping!) and re-stained a deck and a set of stairs. Unclogged dryer vent. CAULKED EVERYTHING (caulk is like liquid duct tape... nuff said), destroyed the weed and ant population and threatened the local mole faction with death if they do get GET OFF MAH DAMN LAWN!... and built shelves and bookcases... someone, dig a hole because I'm too tired to do that... then I will go bury myself._

* * *

_Meanwhile  
Chapter 8 – Temper Tantrums (dedicated to my dad... thanks for not eating your young, Dad! Sorry about all the gray hairs.)  
6/17/12_

* * *

A week's worth of probation during an active battle was going to make the average krogan go into a crazed rage and punch the nearest turian out of habit. Grunt was a pure krogan, and thus above such things.

… he wanted to _headbutt_ the nearest turian out of habit.

And speaking of headbutting...

"No! Don't hit with your lower forehead. You don't have the plates for it, you'll end up breaking your human nose!" Grunt pushed the Pyjak back into a standing position, examining her forehead. The kid had been in the middle of charging up to Grunt to headbutt him in the thigh when the krogan had intercepted with his meaty palm and caught the move.

"You could put her in a helmet." Jack had both her feet propped up and was offering her peanut gallery opinions while watching the lesson with dull interest.

"No self respecting krogan would wear a helmet! …. except in space." Grunt amended quickly before Jack could remark on all the times she had seen the krogan in his full hardsuit get up. "And only because we can't hold our breath forever."

"I can!" The Pyjak huffed, panting from the effort and attempting to headbutt Grunt again.

"Don't let me stop you then." Grunt smirked, catching the blow easily.

The kid drew back, still breathless and took a few quick breaths. Then she gasped for air, cheeks puffed, and snapped her mouth shut. The strange face Pyjak was making lasted only ten seconds, then her skin started to flush.

"This is one of those terrible ideas, isn't it?" Grunt turned slightly to Jack, now a little concerned about the small human who was beginning to change colors.

"Yep." Jack was grinning widely, eager to see the epic screw-up Grunt managed this time.

The Pyjak's face was now a mottled red inter-spaced with odd pale blotches. Both of her tiny fists were balled up, and were now shaking with the effort of holding her breath.

"Pyjak, you have to come up for air sometime, and you are turning colors. This is the most pathetic form of camouflage I have ever seen." Grunt gave the child a dull stare.

Scrunching her eyes shut, it seemed the kid was now trying to keep the air in by shrinking in on herself.

"How long has she gone so far?" Jack asked.

"Twenty seconds."

And with that, the kid exhaled violently and sucked at the air.

"Yeah... twenty-one seconds... not exactly 'forever', Pyjak." Grunt snorted. "Now are you done with practice, or do you have the quad to keep going?"

"Going!" Pyjak panted, regaining her lost breath and leaning back for another headbutt.

The attempt was feeble at best, Grunt frowned with the child's effort. "Hit with the flat of your forehead, like Shepard did!"

Grunt picked up the Pyjak around the middle so she could see his omni-tool as it played back video from Grunt's data logs. Audio had been lost sometime between being mauled by Ravagers trying to save the rachni queen (and Shepard) and arriving on Earth. The video had been played back so much the magnetic recording was becoming static filled. Omni-tools were not meant for long term data storage, only short term to hold you over until you reached a more permanent computer.

The omni-tool had seen better days. Surviving a trip to the galactic core had knocked it off-line (fixed later by the tiny quarian teammate) and nearly smashed again while he was leading Aralakh team. Now the relic (one year old and already obsolete) had survived it's third near-destruction in half as many years after stopping the Reaper invasion. Grunt could clearly remember the day he got the device, and the reason the omni-tool was stuffed so full of video logs.

* * *

**Normandy: One Year ago**

"What." Grunt wasn't really surprised by Shepard's arrival, but the woman seemed as frustrated and moody as he was. It was when the woman lifted a small wristband omni-tool and crooked her finger at the krogan that had him wary.

"So, your first mission... that happened." Shepard approached Grunt when he didn't come to her, grabbing his arm and attaching the band fearlessly.

Grunt nodded, his eyes widening in memory and then slitting in glee. "Yeah. For what Jack can do to a mech..." Grunt led off, his eyes traveling to the door of the cargo bay as if the insane biotic woman was going to burst into the room any second and he was going to miss a brawl, "- Jack is _still_ really small."

Shepard gave a toneless hum, as if this was something she was considering. "There, done." The omni-tool flickered to life, encasing Grunt's hand in an orange bath of light.

The krogan rolled his wrist up, looking at the device in distaste. "Shepard?" Grunt accepted the fact his battlemaster was enforcing him to wear it... but he had no real use for an omni-tool.

"Purgatory... it didn't go well, Grunt. Do you know how much medigel we had to use in there?" Shepard's green eyes flashed violently.

"All of it." Grunt noted, dropping his wrist.

"ALL OF IT!" Shepard's shout took him completely by surprise. Here was a woman not even half his size (and a third of his weight) looking like she wanted to smash his unformed crest into the wall a few times to try to drill a message home into his brain.

Okeer's imprinting when it came to Vanguard's was varied. Asari vanguards – hope your regeneration holds out and that your shots are all lucky. Krogan Vanguards - … swear fealty them them and hope they don't crack your skull. Human Vanguards – NO DATA FOUND.

Advised measure for when no data found –_ assume it wants to eat you._

Shepard's temper was frayed, stress and injury from the mission making her temperamental. Taking a large breath, the woman's pulse slowed slightly and she closed her eyes for a moment. "Grunt, do you know why we used all the medigel?"

The krogan winced a little, "I charged a mech while taking covering fire from guard forces as well." 'Taking covering fire' was a bit of an understatement. Grunt had four prison guards shooting at him as well as the YMIR's minigun firing 2000 rpm at him as he charged. It was only because Shepard biotically charged at Grunt and knocked him prone that he was conscious when she started pouring Medigel into his suit.

Grunt's answer took some of the fury out of Shepard's spine and replaced it with cool indifference again. "And what did we learn from this?"

Balling his fists tightly Grunt was embarrassed to admit it aloud. "It's a terrible idea."

"No!" Shepard barked, startling Grunt again. "Charging a YMIR when it's back is turned is a good idea, they take forever to spin around. But you charged _from the front_. THAT'S a TERRIBLE idea! And we had ample cover at our current position, there was no need for you to break cover!"

Grunt could feel the tingle of Okeer's imprinting agreeing with Shepard. In fact, Okeer's imprinting went further and basically started bringing up all the different terms for 'idiot' that had been put into his mind. He now knew 32 different ways to say 'idiot'.

"oh." Grunt's pupils contracted, the only outward sign he was awed.

"The omni-tool is set to record all combat that you go in from now on. I want you to review every battle as a debriefing. Your regeneration is a gift, not a crutch, you shouldn't have to rely on it as heavily as we did today." Shepard's green eyes were too brilliant, too bright for Grunt to stand and he nodded so he could drop his gaze. "I want every enemy out there _only_ to see you when it's too late. And if they do see you, make the best of it. We have your back, you just have to remember it in time."

Grunt was now staring out the cargo window, his scales feeling like he had just been scalded. Okeer's imprinting was pretty much swooning from her words. A new instinct kicked in, one that normally was active in every newborn krogan... true imprinting. Female krogan taught their young technique and strategy, letting the males teach the more physical aspect. Young krogan imprinted on their mothers first, then on their shaman, and then a battlemaster. Okeer's implanted imprinting was forcefully trying to take the roll of shaman, leaving the position of 'mother' and 'battlemaster' both open.

And Shepard just pushed herself right into position to take over both of those roles.

This imprinting made Grunt... awkward.

"Ah, and one more thing." Shepard paused next to the door, hand on the frame.

Grunt lifted his head, his blue eyes only making fleeting contact with the Commander's own as he gave a questioning grunt in reply.

"Don't call Jack 'small' to her face... is a good way to have your own melted off with biotics." Shepard waved her calloused fingertips in the air, blue sparks bubbling from them like steam.

"What if she starts something first?" Grunt asked, a sharp bite of excitement to his question.

Shepard paused, seemed to think it over, and then said, "If she hurts your _mighty krogan pride_, then pin her to the bulkhead and let her shout it out until she calms down. The bulkheads are designed to funnel biotic energy from the Tantalus core anyway, I'm sure they can handle one murderous biotic trying to turn you inside out."

Suddenly going and starting a fight with Jack seemed... like one of those 'not so good' ideas that Shepard had warned him about earlier.

… Well, there was always one way to test that out... and that would be pin Jack to the bulkhead and see if the omni-tool recording it played back to still be a good idea later.

* * *

Pyjak was again trying to headbutt Grunt properly, each time his hand coming up to block the 'attack' before it hit, each time with a careful correction of what she was doing wrong. From rewatching the vid, the Pyjak had widened her stance and tried leaning back with her shoulders rather than her whole back. First lesson had been that headbutting was all in the shoulders NOT the neck.

"You're leading your attack too much. You aren't trying to bend over backwards, just get enough momentum to bludgeon someone unconscious." Grunt made it sound _so_ easy.

Giving a frustrated whine, the Pyjak leaned back for the windup, but suddenly she shifted all her weight forward into a charge and plowed right into Grunt's thigh, her head colliding with the armor at his hip. Bracing both her hands against his hip, the kid now tried pushing him, the rubber soles of her shoes making squeaking noises as they failed to find purchase on the floor.

Grunt didn't move even an inch.

"Unless you are trying to drop me with extreme acts of _patheticness_ and make me surrender out of pity... this tactic is stupid." Grunt's voice was a monotone, but there was a broad grin on his face as the kid looked up at him.

"You're stupid!" The Pyjak retorted, her face flushed with exertion of her attempts.

"Stupidhead!" Grunt fired back.

The Pyjak looked appropriately surprised to hear that familiar insult come back at her. "Meanie! Mean meanie STUPIDHEAD!" There was an excited (if a bit manic) grin across the child's face as she got riled up.

Jack looked up from her omni-tool, wonderment splashed across her face as the 300 pound krogan got into a fight with a 40 pound kid. Grunt had guns heavier than the kid!

"Yeah? Well I don't care, you're MY tiny stupidhead, and you can't do anything about it." Grunt snagged the Pyjak by the back of her salarian jumpsuit and lifted her into the air.

"No!" There was a gleeful squeal to the kid's voice, "You're MY stupidhead! Big fat stupid-stupidhead! … with a stupid nose!"

Jack settled back into her chair, one eyebrow raised in disbelief at the five year old human kid attempting to verbally spar with a krogan.

… to be fair... they were pretty much on the same insult level.

"... is it wrong that you two are sickeningly sweet?" Jack was somewhere between a gag and bliss.

"... what?" Said the krogan. Krogan did NOT do cute.

"...wot?" The child parroted, in the exact tone and expression. However the Pyjak seemed more amused than truly taken aback.

"I'm sure you are going to win krogan father of the year... just by not eating your young, or however that's working out for you." Jack leaned back, arms crossed behind her head so her sheered ponytail twisted in with her fingers.

Lifting the Pyjak higher into the air, Grunt deposited the kid on top of a support beam that spanned the length of the barracks. "Stay there, Pyjak... and watch as I flatten this human." Grunt cracked his knuckles menacingly.

Jack didn't remove herself from her seat, but only gave Grunt a cocky grin ran the line of madness. Taunting krogan? Madness! "Awww, someone's... _sensitive _to taunting._" _Madness had always suited Jack quite nicely.

There was a triple chirp from Grunt's omni-tool, echoed by Jack's own device. Any friendly fighting was immediately halted and the two of them lifted their wrists to check the incoming messages.

N7-Squad aid requested. Biotic Division aid requested.

As if synchronized, both of them lifted their gaze to the child clutching a support beam at the ceiling, watching them in confusion as the fight/sparring had stopped. It had gone unsaid that if Grunt was gone then Jack would watch the Pyjak (because Jack didn't want to see Miranda ruin another kid... granted, it would probably be with pampering, but it would still count!). Planning in advance had never been either of their strong suits.

"Rodriguez!" Jack suddenly barked into her omni-tool. "Limp your gimpy self down here. I've got a job you can do around HQ." There was a responding chirp and then Jack lowered her computer. "Got this covered."

Grunt pulled the Pyjak down from the support beam, the kid instantly latching onto his armor like a barnacle. Children have an intuit sense when their parents are about to leave and upon realizing that they gain the ability to glue themselves bodily to people. "No." There was an unhappy whine from the blonde-haired child and she seemed to be on the verge of tipping into tears.

… Krogan did not _do cute! Stop trying, kid!_ … it... it's... Grunt grit his teeth. Dammit it, that was effective!

There was the approaching bubbling gurgle of biotics to the barracks, and a young human woman with blue at her heels skid into the room. Literally. Sliding as if the floor was made of ice. Rodriguez was using her biotics under the soles of her boots only, causing a kind of lift cushion that allowed the user to slide without friction across surfaces. It was how FTL travel worked... reduce the mass and friction to hit those speeds. While the teen wasn't moving FTL, she was moving fast enough she didn't see the first row of beds and plowed shin first into them, toppling over with a yelp.

Jack shot out with a cushion of biotics, catching the teen before she could face plant into the concrete floor. "Dammit, Rodriguez! What are you doing, besides trying to skin your face off on the pavement." Twisting her fist, the corresponding energy cushion twisted as well as deposited the teen on her feet.

"S-sorry prof." Rodriguez lifted her arm in a salute... or tried to. Her right arm was bandaged and covered with a nearly immobile plastic brace. Bruises and scrapes littered her right hand and once she deactivated the biotics her right leg seemed stiff and lame. The accident prone teen had nearly been killed during the last push on Earth, a Brute slamming through the girl's barriers even as she tried to defend an engineer setting up a turret. Her heroics had bought enough time to finish the turret and turned the Brute into a bloody carcass. Heroics or not though, Jack had been furious... and proud.

"Gotta mini-mission for you, Rodriquez. Watch the Squirt. She's probably going to vanish into the vent system and we'll never see her again if someone doesn't keep an eye on her." Jack cocked a thumb at the child, reaching down to pick up her officer's jacket from the back of a chair.

The biotic teen was visibly disappointed on not returning to the battlefield, but the teen knew she was in no shape to push her luck. "Right. Babysitting. I can do that." Then the teen's eyes fell upon Grunt holding the Pyjak. "... does she headbutt?"

Grunt chuckled. "Only a little."

"This much!" Releasing Grunt's armor, the Pyjak held her arms apart shoulder to shoulder.

"Right..." And with that the bubbling gurgle of a biotic barrier going up surrounded Rodriguez. "Ok, I'm good."

Jack was grinning. "See, learns her lesson the first time. Barriers are step 1. Step 2 is 'Kill all the things'... and we'll work on that later." Her own biotic barrier was a brilliant blue arc of blue, unlike the teen's feeble blue haze.

With the Pyjak's hands still held at shoulder distance apart to gesture how big her headbutt attack was, Rodriguez easily pulled the kid from Grunt's armor. There was a surprised squeal, made even more shrill by a note of alarm. Grunt jolted, his hands balling into fists and wanting only to deck someone in the face and snatch the kid back. And not necessarily in that order either. But if he took a kid into a combat zone one more time, Hackett was going to maul him.

"Erd-not." The kid gave a plaintive cry, both hands reaching out towards the krogan to remove herself from this teenager's grasp. Suddenly the kid flopped bonelessly in an attempt to escape Rodriguez. With an injured arm the teen biotic fumbled the child like a football before slamming a stasis field up... suspending the Pyjak mid-tumble.

"oh oh crap, I'm sorry." Rodriguez winced, pulling the kid from the field. The child blinked in confusion, performing a double-take at the biotic.

"Yeah, she does that too." Grunt breathed a sigh of relief, one hand reaching out to touch the area where the Pyjak's unformed crest would be if she were a krogan.

"Grunt." A second wail, this time intensified by the fact the kid was now freaked out by what had just happened. "noooooo."

Raising one finger to his wide mouth, Grunt hissed a simply. "Shhh."

And just like that, the Pyjak fell silent.

"I'll be more shh out there, if you don't cry like a quarian." A bargain was offered.

"I'm not crying!" Pyjak grabbed at the large roll of fabric of the jumpsuit, tugging on it as she most certainly did not cry. "And you are too big to shh."

Grunt was grinning. "Yep. But that's why I have that Dragon gun." Grunt reached back at his hip to touch the stock of the folded shotgun.

Rubbing at her eyes, but no longer kicking up a fuss or wailing, the Pyjak frowned unhappily. "My shoes are untied again." The kid said, kicking out her foot so the loose laces waved.

Jack was sniggering as Grunt grabbed the kid's leg to loop knots back into the laces. "Is that why you refuse to leave me alone... because I can tie shoes?"

"Because you are the strongest... shoe tie-r." A sly grin crossed quickly over the Pyjak's face before she remembered she was supposed to be sulking.

"Rodriguez, I'm about to give you some important advice when dealing with Mr. Sensitive krogan over here... don't lose his kid. I'm not sure the HQ can survive the kind of rampage he would go on if sh—stuff happened to his little pink kid."

"I CAN hear you." Grunt rumbled, finishing his knots with even more knots.

Patting the teen on the back, Jack gave the student a wan smile. "Drink your juice. Take your pills. And if anyone looks at you or the kid funny, fu-mess 'em up."

"Yes m'am!" Rodriguez nodded. The teen quite obviously idolized Jack, and for surviving what should have been the end of the world under her command the kid was lodged firmly in hero-worship mode.

Jack shrugged the officer's jacket on and Grunt clipped his Alliance-issue pack to his back. Looking over his shoulder just once as they left, he saw the Pyjak clutching at her braid with one hand while her other clung to Rodriguez's clothing and with tiny eyebrows furrowed in distress.

"Ah, they grow up so fast." Jack lead the way to the LZ. "One minute they are falling over their own shoe laces, the next they've learned how to kill Banshee. … And in Rodriguez's case, she does both in the same day."

* * *

There is no such thing as a 'simple mission'. Even just saying the words 'simple mission' would send the ground squad on the Normandy into a panic. Every culture had their superstitions, and the Normandy had cultivated one in Grunt that you could jinx a perfectly good mission by saying those words.

So the first salarian who said it in the N7 special squad team... Grunt headbutt him into submission.

Nothing had gone as it was supposed to. The civilians they were supposed to rescue were actually NOT civilians but World Government scientists. They were not where they were supposed to be. All comm's died once they approached the position, oh and yeah – someone apparently put on their favorite scent of 'Eau de Brute' or something because there had been nearly half a dozen. In fact, if not for Jack's biotic group keeping them safe with barriers, there would have been casualties.

A 'simple mission' was only supposed to take three hours.

Nearly twelve hours later everyone limped back to HQ. However it was _everyone_, which had the entire squad in high spirits for what they had just gone through.

"... I think I owe everyone another round of tattoos." Jack was slumped over in the shuttle, gore spattered and bruised and exhausted. Two of her students were spread starfish on the shuttle floor, empty juice boxes beside them as they had tried to restock some of their energy.

"Can I get a few vertebra tattooed on my spine... because I think half of mine are gone right now." One of her students moaned.

Grunt's team had been in better shape than the biotic students. They had experience of fighting for merc bands or for security agencies and weren't quite so green as the kids. The troop had followed their orders with split second reactions and Grunt wasn't quite sure if their success was due to him leading or from his team being able to dodge.

Dodging was an underrated skill. Garrus always said so... but Grunt had a feeling he said it ironically.

Once again returning to HQ in the dead of night, Grunt didn't relish the though of stumbling through the barracks to try to find an empty bed. Or (as the thought struck him two seconds later) trying to find a single kid in the barracks in the dark.

"Hey, where's your gimpy biotic kid." Grunt nudged Jack in the ribs, the woman was too exhausted to be ticklish anymore and only gave an irritated grumble.

"She's either one of two places: in some deep shit, or biotic quarters." Jack levered herself to a upright sitting position. She looked over Grunt, standing straight without any sign of discomfort or injury. "Screw you, krogans. Great indestructible … jerks." Jack winced at that attempt to censor herself.

The biotic kids had their own section of barracks, mostly because a terrified biotic student suffering from nightmares on what they had just witnessed can cause a lot of damage. Each student had their own room, nothing more than a closet, but it was all surrounded by heavy concrete. The building they were housed in had once been a individual storage depot and the rollaway doors were left as they were even. Jack had decided it felt like being caged again and slept in the sub-basement where maintenance for the storage depot was kept.

Jack the basement dweller, just like old times. It would explain why she was so pale in those patchs of skin between the tattoos.

One of the rollaway doors was partially open, a beam of light brightening the dim hallway. From inside the room, a voice pleaded. "Pleeeease, go to sleep."

"No!" Petulant and firm, it was clearly the voice of a groggy and cranky five year old girl.

"Please? P-pretty please? Look, it's waaaaay past your bedtime." Rodriguez's voice was hoarse and she sounded as exhausted as the rest of her teammates who had been out on mission.

"Nooo~ooo." The Pyjak's voice broken into a long warbling squeal of refusal.

"It's way past _my_ bedtime!"

"Nu-huh!"

"I've read you your bedtime story, please, why won't you sleep?" This was the voice of someone driven mad by a sleep-deprived child.

"You didn't do it right! You didn't do the voices!"

Grasping the underside of the rollaway door, Grunt thrust it upwards and suddenly was hit in the shins by a 39 inch tall charge from a furious kid. "Hey. What happened to 'shhh'?" Grunt craned his head down to peer at the kid. The Pyjak had smudges under her eyes from battling sleep, as did Rodriguez. There were several stacks of children's books around the room, with the one Rodriguez was holding being called 'The Poky Little Puppy'.

"I'll give you a pile of shh!" The kid whimpered, her eyes heavy and her hair mussed. Grasping hands locked around the back of his knee and she sat heavily on his foot as if it were a chair. Bowing her head, the Pyjak seemed to be trying to sleep while clinging to him now.

"Oh thank god you are here. Take her! Please. I just want to sleep." And with that the teen turned and faceplanted right into her cot.

Jack tugged at her hair, removing the hair tie keeping her ponytail up. "Looks like your little monster beats my monsters. Congratulations, she's going to be a terror when she grows up." The biotic gave an exhausted and smug grin. Taking the book from Rodriguez's limp hand, Jack tossed it to him. "Here. Just in case the battle continues later."

Snatching the book from the air, Grunt was treated to a view of the cover of 'Poky Little Puppy', which seemed to be some sort of borderline retarded earth-varren creature. Judging by the way the Pyjak was looking at the book, she really did want to hear it again. … great.

Grunt went to leave, stepping carefully with the kid clinging to his foot. The move caused the kid to burst into exhausted giggles and Grunt to wobble unsteadily trying not to tread on the child or tip over. The overall effect make it look like the krogan had the world's funniest limp... quite literally with all the giggling going on.

Picking an empty biotic bunk room rather than limping back down the barracks and shoving someone out of their bed, Grunt slid the rollaway door closed behind him. Removing the Pyjak from his shin and putting her on the bed failed to work as planned when the kid shot off the bed and got both arms around him again with a whine.

"What?" Grunt rumbled, trying again to untangle the human kid from him.

"Story." Pyjak said with a tone that implied more crying (or to be more precise 'I'm-not-crying!' crying) if she didn't get her story.

With a frustrated grunt, the krogan turned and sat on the cot, listening as the metal frame groaned and creaked but managed to hold out. "Fine. Story. But we do it my way, and when its done if you have a problem, go find an asari." Jerking the book open, the fragile pages fluttered to the first page.

"Do the voices?" Pyjak asked.

"No." There was no bargaining on this point. Krogans do not tell stories with 'voices'. "The puppies are all now krogan. This story is now called 'The Poky Little Krogan'. _Deal with it._"

And Pyjak 'dealt with it' fairly well. She seemed more intrigued by this 'new' story, where tiny krogan kept sneaking under a fence and would go without their dessert. To keep the story flowing, Grunt simply had to change every happening of 'puppy' to 'krogan' and he did so without fail. However by the end of the book, a listener might have noticed the krogan was raising his voice almost an octave for the mother's voice.

That is, if there were another listener who was awake. The little Pyjak had slumped over against Grunt, out cold and looking remarkably peaceful. Her long braid had been gathered in her hand again while she clutched at his armor. There simply was no way of pulling the kid off to take off his armor without waking her up and probably dealing with _another story_,... so Grunt simply flopped over and let the kid cling to him as he fell into an exhausted sleep.

Okeer's implanted memories told him exactly shit about raising kids... but it was tiring.


	9. Imprinting

_100 degree and over heat-index this week. I am a lucky bastard... I got my AC fixed THE DAY BEFORE all that happened. Otherwise me and the hell-cats would have been belly up on the basement tile trying to cool off. I had wanted to write this chapter sooner, but between yet more unpacking, working with the remodeling dudes over here, and work... I have no sense of timing. My intentions were to end at this chapter. I think it's a fairly good 'ending' point. Now I will go back to writing 'Limbo'._

* * *

_Meanwhile  
Chapter 9 -Imprinting  
6/30/12_

* * *

Grunt found he had learned more in three days about children than he had for his two-week stay in the female camp and Okeer's imprinting combined. For example, logic did not always work on kids... in fact, some children were _impervious _to logic. Children don't yet have a full grasp of their own emotions, making them prone to temper tantrums or sudden bouts of sullen withdrawal. Human kids also were very touch oriented – they craved physical contact on a regular basis. Combine all these things together and you get irrational, clinging, and _whining_ children.

Pyjak took the physical aspect in a headlock and refused to let go. When she wasn't riding around on Grunt's back, she was trotting not even three feet behind him like a small chick following it's mother. She also craved socialization just beyond physical nearness. The little human child liked having her hair brushed and braided, and often insisted Grunt do it for her. Braiding hair was NOT a krogan skill... and Grunt stopped just short of tying multiple knots in the file blonde hair in his attempt. For her braids the Pyjak had to be bustled over to Miranda or the teen biotic Rodriguez. However when it came to brushing hair, Grunt had that part down.

Running a tiny brush through silken and fine hair was probably blackmail material to the entire krogan race. However if anyone so much as blinked at him, they would have the brush crammed somewhere _very _uncomfortable... bristle end first. The Pyjak was seated on one of his armored greaves, calmly letting a krogan brush her hair out. It was one of the few morning rituals the child seemed to have. Grunt's own morning rituals usually consisted of waking up, cleaning and loading his guns, punching a batarian, and then breakfast.

"You hungry, Pyjak?" Grunt had finished his afternoon schedule of 'jack shit' and was now in the middle of 'diddly-squat' to do.

"Yes!" The kid had been in the middle of drawing something. Miranda had given the kid a roll of butcher's paper to use, rather than the few pieces of paper that were on her desk (all of which were highly important... and now covered with drawings of flowers). Crumpling the sheet of paper, the Pyjak stuffed it down the front of her jumpsuit and her tiny nub of a pencil vanished into her pocket. The kid had apparently been observing quarians and their amazing ability to make massive amounts of 'stuff' vanish into their suits.

With the pint-sized human perched on his hump, Grunt made his way through the HQ to the Mess Hall for lunch. By this point, much of the base had gotten used to spotting one of the largest krogan carrying around a human child and several others had actually started the trend too. It wasn't uncommon now to see Strays tagging along behind various human Alliance members and even the occasional asari or turian. Every time the search parties turned over a rock, there was another Stray kid. Wiping out humans seemed to be just as impossible as killing off pyjaks.

"Gardner!" Pyjak spotted the old cook from their position in the mess line.

The balding cook looked up, waving a spatula in greeting and half a serving of potatoes went flying.

"That's your half." Grunt teased.

"Is not!" Pyjak looked appalled as the chef cleaned the fallen food up... but no one quite saw where he ended up putting it. "I want the ice cream half."

Ice cream was another Earth thing that Grunt was putting right up there with beef as 'best thing ever'. Whoever the human was who invented a way to turn disgusting milk into ice cream deserved to be Earth's clan leader. Gardner had tried experimenting with making his own ice cream with moderate success and usually ended up with a sweetened milk slush, but the Pyjak was always glad to help him sample it.

So far Gardner hadn't managed to feed the kid any of the culinary atrocities (or 'war crimes' as the Normandy crew had called them, as it went against some kind of code for not torturing soldiers). This meant the kid thought Gardner was a great cook. But making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was apparently the Pyjak's high bar. "Can I have dessert first?" The kid asked.

Gardner scanned the child's omni-tool, reading what the computer figured a growing 5-year-old human should be eating. "Hrrmm." The old man glared at the readout. "Doesn't look like dessert is part of a growing kid's diet... but you'll be getting the same rations as the soldiers are today."

There was a low mournful keening from the child.

"But... gimme your milk, I think I can try a milk shake today." Garner picked up the tiny carton of milk from the child's tray, dumping the contents into a blender and gathering up ingredients out of a chest sized freezer.

"Milk … shake?" Grunt glared at the carton of milk on his own tray. Milk wasn't really a staple of krogan diet and on most days he gave it to the kid to drink. Picking up the wax carton, Grunt shook it so much the carton ballooned slightly with all the bubbles that formed in it. Poking the box open, the krogan took a short drink and then grimaced. "Doesn't improve the taste at all."

"Give me that." Gardner snatched Grunt's milk as well, adding that to the blender with a handful of other ingredients. "Only one of us it a chef, and it ain't you, boy."

There it was again... old men calling Grunt 'boy'. It had to be some sort of coming-of-age for being old and crotchety.

The line flowed around the massive krogan and small girl with other soldiers giving Gardner curious looks. At this point, the chef was well known for his attempts at 'creative cooking' and the soldiers had a healthy dose of fear in their meals when they saw the word 'special' or 'casserole' on the menu.

"Here we are, two milkshakes! … It probably looks a little watery, well,_ deal with it_. Apparently it doesn't work very well with skim milk, but you take what you get." Gardner pushed two mugs of a pinkish colored liquid forward. The Pyjak gave a gleeful squeal and held out her tray to get hers, but Grunt found he almost wish he had the non-shake milk back.

Giving a grunt of thanks (something learned from her krogan guardian), Pyjak toddled her tray unsteadily away from the line. Following behind her and creating a sudden vacuum of traffic as everyone moved out of the Pyjak's way to avoid Grunt, they sat at a table filled with mostly human marines. One of the marines was staring at Grunt's bright pink drink, his jaw half hanging open.

"What." Grunt grit out.

"Gardner's doing _milkshakes _?" The marine almost didn't seem to notice it was a 300 pound krogan with said milkshake, and seemed more in awe than amused by the pink drink. "Gardner! Why did you tell us you were doing milkshakes?"

"Cause you whiners didn't deserve them." Gardner had a wooden spoon clenched in his jaws as he tried to pour a potato concoction into a casserole dish.

The burly marine, large enough to get into a pushing match with a krogan without losing too much ground, leaned down to the Pyjak. "Are you going to finish that?" He asked.

The kid's response was to grab her pink drink and start chugging it as if it was a shot of ryncol. A few moments later she gave a gasp as she finished it off, slamming the mug down on the table. There was a little pink milkshake mustache on her upper lip. "Yep!"

Now the marine turned to look at Grunt, but before he could even ask he had found the krogan had done the same... including the matching pink mustache. "What?" Now more amused than irritated, Grunt smirked at the human.

"You haveta eat your dessert first." The Pyjak said to the marine. "I'm still growing, I need dessert."

"What she said." Grunt wiped the pink off his upper lip and turned to his meal. Today's meal was made of something called 'pork'. It took only a few bites for Grunt to realize it was just as delicious as beef and ice cream. How the humans were not as round as the volus with yet another delicious Earth animal. Was every animal on Earth this tasty?

The kid tried to eat with as much gusto as Grunt did, but found she simply couldn't eat everything. Gardner had been slipping the kid slightly larger portions in order to give her some 'meat on her bones', but from months of starving under Reaper invasion it didn't take much for the kid to feel 'full'.

"I can't eat all my 'tatos." Pushing the tray towards him, the kid had eaten all her meat, leaving just some potato-based starchy food.

"Pff, you are so small, you could eat two nuts and be full. Like a Pyjak." Knowing now that logic has no use against children, Grunt resorted to taunting.

The results were successful. "I can so! I can eat all of it if I want!" Frowning in offense, the child snatched her fork back up, looking rather like she might stab someone in the face with it.

"Good thing you don't want to then, because I'm going to eat it." Grunt made a great gesture of reaching for the tray.

The Pyjak was wolfing down her food even before his hand reached the platter and had cleared her plate. "Muh!" She said, mouth full and cheeks puffed with food. "Ah atf ip!" Whatever she said was lost in the mutterings. Humans were surprisingly krogan-like, especially as children. And only the insane try to take food from krogan.

Grunt ruffled the kid's hair, tossing both trays into a pile and hoisting the child to his shoulder even as she choked down the last mouthful of lunch. The Pyjak waved to Gardner as Grunt headed for the door, the chef waving back and causing him to lose his grip on a stick of butter and a nearby quarian hit the deck as the projectile missed them. Butter is bad for you... in more ways than one if you were levo-incompatible.

"Get them on that shuttle! We didn't dig our way onto the Citadel just to sit back and stare at the mess!" Wrex's booming voice could be heard in the HQ courtyard that bordered the shuttle-bay. Grunt cocked his head and came to a halt, his full attention now on the krogan warlord.

At his side Miranda worked at a data pad, shuffling resources and requisitioning more shuttles. The Ex-Cerberus member paused in her work and nudged Wrex to pass him the plate. The krogan gave it a glare with his red eyes and shook his head in disgust. Their voices didn't carry to the Mess Hall where Grunt stood.

...so he decided to remedy that.

The LZ wasn't outside of Grunt's house-arrest, but it was clear Wrex didn't expect the human kid to be with him. "Nice to see you've taken a interest in the local fauna, boy." Wrex narrowed his red eyes in amusement at the child flopped over on Grunt's back as if he were a giant moving couch.

"I ate too much." The kid mumbled listlessly.

"I've got 99 problems, and I wish that were one of them." Wrex winced. "You picked one hell of a time to get a slap on the wrist and confined to base. I'm trying to get every available soldier onto the Citadel but you and that N7 force you've got are marked 'Earth Only'." A sneer twisted Wrex's maw as his eyes flashed towards Miranda.

"I've been trying at that, but it would appear Hackett himself is assigning the missions for that team. Any more attempts at changing roster will cause more suspicion than I can redirect." Miranda was frowning too, but flicked her hand across the data pad and it made a chiming noise.

Grunt quickly grasped the situation. "You found Shepard?" His heart rate doubled as both hearts suddenly picked up a quadruple beat.

"No. But the Citadel is now open, and we found where that beam sent her to. And it's _not pretty_." Wrex winced, his eyes darting up to the child now in disapproval. This was not for a child's ears, so he simplified it down. "We need troops up there fast. If Shepard's still sitting around up there, she's been there for five days. How long did you say humans can go without water?"

"Not that long." Miranda answered. "Her cybernetics would have shut her down into a near hibernation state... it would be possible for her to be alive if she's there."

"And if she's not there?" Grunt felt the tingle of frustration kick right into his gut.

"Then she's probably out in the Normandy, discovering some long extinct alien to add to her crew or killing it. " Wrex snorted, amused far too much at Grunt's expense. "I figure we have a 50% chance of her still being up there. And if she's there, we'll find her."

More than anything, Grunt wanted to flip off Hackett and go with the boarding party onto the Citadel. They had been receiving transmissions from the Citadel as various survivors on board managed to contact them. C-Sec Captain Bailey reported they were locked out of most systems but they had removed most of the organic-to-synthetic based reapers on board at this point. Once the Keepers had repaired enough of the systems to start opening the Citadel up to the alliance and the survivors on the station were eager to get the hell off of it.

"I want to help." The child's voice was completely unexpected. Still perched on Grunt's back, the kid had a serious look on her face.

"Help?" Miranda lowered her data pad. "With what?"

"Finding Shepard." As if the only thing needed to find the missing Commander was a five-year-old kid, the child volunteered to fill that role.

Wrex snorted, trying not to smirk or sneer at the earnest child. "Pyjak..." He began.

"Wrex." The child said, her tone almost identical to Shepard's own. It almost dazed the krogan to hear it repeated by such a small kid.

Shaking his head to regain his train of thought, Wrex continued, "There are going to be monsters. Big. Scary. Monsters."

At this, the child's eyes widened slightly, and she hunkered down to flatten herself on Grunt's back. "Not scared." She insisted, but she was clutching at Grunt in a way that seemed to imply she was only not scared because _she had the bigger monster._

Grunt jostled slightly, pulling the kid down and putting her on the ground. She immediately latched onto his hand. Grunt's voice carried a tone of menace as he spoke to his clan leader, "I want to go. I _need_ to be up there."

Wrex frowned, his scars turning into deep craggy paths. "You are in no place to make demands, boy. … I'd take you if I could, but Hackett requested you remain planet-side."

Whatever Hackett's plans were, Grunt already hated them. An idea was struggling to the surface of his mind, and it seemed like an alternative. "We could man the comms, report any chatter or incoming signals to the ground team." He offered. Grunt was no tech, not even by a stretch, but it gave him an excuse to hang around the Normandy's QED transmitter. And if the odds were in their favors it would also be Grunt who heard first when/_if_ they found Shepard.

Miranda perked up at this. "It's either we let him man the comm station, or I'm inevitably going to have to file a report on why Grunt got into yet another confrontation with his fists. Let him operate the comm station." She insisted... no... _ordered_.

Wrex seemed to be balanced on the border of pissed and amused, and settled for a grudging acceptance. Miranda could butt-heads with Shepard (figuratively of course, Grunt was sure that if it was literal them the woman would have been bludgeoned by the Commander before they reached the Collector home world) without fear and seemed to have the same perspective with Wrex. Suddenly Wrex's grudging acceptance exploded into full out 'I am Amused' and toothy smirk crossed his face as he looked down at the Pyjak.

The kid had become distracted holding Grunt's hand was now turning pirouettes clutching Grunt's thumb and the young krogan hadn't even noticed. Whatever protocol was for speaking to your race's leader... he was pretty sure letting a kid dance around like a delicate little asari was probably some kind of social blunder. In dismay, Grunt reached down to toss the kid back over his shoulder it the Pyjak apparently finished her 'wind-up' and took three dizzy steps towards him to try some kind of super-charged headbutt.

The kid stumbled past him and ended up conking her head on Wrex's thigh in her dizzy daze.

Miranda was mortified. Instead of saying anything, the woman only placed her face in her palm and dropped her head.

Wrex was roaring with laughter and reached down to pick up the littlest assailant. The krogan clean leader held her up into the air. "Someone has been teaching you. No points for style there, but you are going to be a terror when you grow up." Blood red eyes crinkled in amusement as he looked over at Grunt.

Grunt looked like he wanted the kid back. "Pyjak... what did I tell you about headbutting." He rumbled.

The child's eyebrows went up. "Um. Not for play."

"No! Not that part."

Now her face scrunched up in thought. "umm... Oh! Not to lean far back, it's in the shoulders, and use the flat of your forehead."

"Add 'spinning' to that list too, don't spin... it looks stupid." Grunt folded his arms.

"No! I havta spin!" The kid insisted. Wrex spotted the tell-tale signs of a child about to kick up a fit because they were being held and quickly put the Pyjak on the ground. Still clutching the elder krogan's first finger, the kid began to spin again.

… if it was a social faux paux to have a child dancing around you while your people's leader stood not three feet away... what kind of social blunder was it to have the kid dancing _with _him?

Wrex gave Grunt a wry smile. "At least she dances better than Shepard." He says, extending his hand towards Grunt so he could take the child's grasp off him. The blue-eyed krogan slipped his finger under the child's five-digit grasp and pries her hold into his hand instead.

The embarrassment at watching a member of your own race completely without any impulse control to resist dancing had finally worn off Miranda. "We should be going. Grunt, any comm chatter that does not come from the squad team should be routed to myself or –," the rest of Miranda's reminder was cut off as the massive krogan leader swept past her, nudging her towards the shuttle.

"Let the boy figure it out. He hijacked the comm's on the night of the invasion to chat with his battlemaster, he can figure out how to call you." Wrex grunted, pulling his trusty shotgun from his back and cocking a round into the chamber. "Ground team, move out!" he bellowed.

Twirling halted immediately and the Pyjak made to follow Wrex. Grunt tightened his grip on her soft little hand and dragged her back. "Where do you think you are going?" He rumbled.

"I want to help!" The Pyjak said firmly. "I don't know how to use 'comm', I want to help!"

"You don't know how to use a gun either. And you aren't going to help Shepard by playing tag with reapers." Grunt snorted, hoisting the kid by the back of her bodysuit and tossing her over his shoulder as if she were just another pack. "Why are you so eager to help? You don't even know Shepard."

"Uh-huh!" the kid insisted diligently. "Momma told me stories 'bout her. She said Shepard stopped the first Monster back when I was a baby." The first 'monster' being Sovereign, happening almost 4 years ago now.

Grunt nodded. He had received that knowledge via Okeer's imprinting in the tube as well.

"She's helped the Earth, and fixed the gen... gen-o-page, and stopped the robots from fighting the suit-people, and –," The Pyjak rambled on, now describing events that had happened within the last six months.

"You are missing the middle part." Grunt hefted the kid to his hump as he shuffled towards the comm center. "The one where she saves a bunch of whiny human colonists, kills more monsters, and then detonates a bomb in the middle of their base."

"And you helped?" Pyjak's voice rose in glee. She had heard this story already, but heaven-forbid if she didn't want to hear it again. "Tell me!"

If Grunt told her the story much more, she'd be able to recite it verbatim. Still, there wasn't a whole lot to do inside the quantum comm room, so there was a bit of creative story telling involved in _this_ version of the story: in which Grunt punched a Thresher Maw in the craw so hard it exploded (and not at all exploding due to Shepard launching heavy weaponry at it).

* * *

Manning the comm center was a 'busy work' job, since most of the time the message went where they needed to go without help. It had taken only five minutes for the Pyjak to have her fill of 'helping' and the kid lost interest in the comm sets and ended up drawing on scraps of newsprint that she kept pulling out of her jumpsuit. She was long overdue for a nap, but the kid refused sleep at every turn. A temper tantrum was probably brewing if Grunt insisted on it, or if she got more tired. Basically, the kid was a powder keg of childish rage at any given moment... and it was _adorable._

Messages had come through the comm center that were just a little _odd_ while Grunt listened in at the chatter. Two of the messages were from Geth ships attempting to communicate with rachni vessels, but mostly just making the most annoying racket ever, like a cross between an old-fashion modem and electro-pop music. The resulting noise has been the cause of yet another spontaneous dance by the five-year-old listening in.

There had been other odd comm signals too. Several salarian STG ships were pinging Earth trying to set up a new comm bouy and kept getting the number wrong (how you can _miss_ a planet, Grunt had no clue. Quantum tech was just confusing). A turian vessel was quarreling with another ship over who should yield right-of-way for docking procedures over the comms (they were arguing with a disabled asari dreadnought with no propulsion system... the dreadnought won that argument).

Stranger still was random comm stations that would simply light up as if receiving signals but no messages would be pending through. Several times this happened to the Normandy's QED transmitter... but no signals came through.

All oddities aside, Wrex's team went back a constant stream of chatter on their status. Civilians in the Citadel had been barricaded safely away in the station and remaining reaper troops were cleaned out. Infiltrators had figured that the Beam's end point was somewhere beyond the Keeper tunnels.

Wrex's frustrated growl came over the comm as the krogan warlord oversaw the squad, the slight hiss of static behind his words. "Maybe we should have taken that little Pyjak with... she could have fit into the duct works."

There was a short pause over the comm, and then there was an icy reply from Miranda of, "That had better have been complaining for the sake of complaining and not an actual suggestion. I would hate for your transmissions to Bakara to suddenly be unable to pass through."

"That's playing like a krogan." Wrex said grudgingly. Whether playing like a krogan was fair or unfair, it seemed the threat ended the complaining in any case.

At mention of her name, the Pyjak lifted her head from her drawing, a pen clutched awkwardly in her hand. "I could have saved Shepard by hiding?" The kid asked.

"No. You could have gotten eaten by Keepers by hiding." Grunt huffed, a wide smirk spreading over his face.

"Nuh-huh! Keepers don't eat!" the kid insisted.

"Sure they do. They eat little girls."

"Ahhnn!" The whine pulled from the kid was accompanied by the child trying to scramble into his lap. While sitting, Grunt's lap was _just_ out of reach to sit on without a running jump or climbing all over him like some damn playground. Lifting the heel of one ankle to hook over one of Grunt's knee guards, the child then hoisted herself up in perhaps the most awkward climbing maneuver that he had ever seen. She still clutched the sheet of paper and pen in one hand.

"What have you got?" Grunt tugged on the paper, expecting to see childish doodles and scribbles. He wasn't disappointed in that sense... though he had no clue what exactly he was looking at.

"That's you!" Pointing to a large oval with four limbs poking out of it (and each limb was tipped with three lines that must be fingers and toes) the drawing bore little resemblance to a krogan as it did to some sort of murderous amoeba. A round circle above 'his' head had four lines in it, obviously his crest with scars included. While accuracy in visual appeal was rather lacking, the Pyjak proved she could certainly count and paid attention to tiny details.

"And that's me." Pointing again, this time to another circular figure, this one was sideways on the page. The kid had drawn herself as a stiff-limbed figure (five fingers and toes) and a wide grin on her face. The childish drawing of herself was the exact same size as the picture of Grunt, size perspective hadn't quite sunk in to her young mind yet. Just in case it wasn't clear enough who the kid was in the picture, Pyjak had written 'me' next to the little drawing of herself.

Bright blue eyes were watching Grunt for some sort of recognition or reaction. His own matching colored eyes darted from figure to figure on the paper before twisting his head to peer at the child. "Draw a Thresher Maw." Was all he said.

So the kid did. She scribbled on the paper, now balanced on his lap, and a few minutes later held up a drawing of what appeared to be a tube with teeth (not at all inaccurate of a Maw) near Grunt's own drawing. In fact, she had erased all the fingers on his hand and replaced it with a circle that meant a closed fist.

"Am I punching it?" Grunt took the fragile butcher paper from the kid.

"Like in the story!" Pyjak chirped. It was obvious the kid believed every word of his 'modified' story, after all, with a krogan as strong and indestructible as Grunt was in her eyes how could he not punch a Thresher Maw?

As a general rule, krogan did not do 'cute' well.

But then … rules were meant to be broken.

"I think I'm going to have to keep you now. Can't put a little Pyjak like you back in the nest after carrying you around..." Grunt hoisted the kid to his shoulders, letting her wrap her arms around his neck.

"No, I'm keeping you!" The kid insisted, always twisting his words around. "I'm older, I know better." Said the 5-year-old.

"Yeah? Well I'm bigger, I know better! You are _too small _to know anything." Chuckled the 1-year-old tank bred.

Huffing, the kid bonked her forehead against the heavy hide of the back of Grunt's neck. "I'm still growing! I'll get bigger, I'll get stronger!" The kid cried out, a wide grin on her face.

"You better. Because it's not possible to be any smaller or weaker than are you right now." Grunt taunted.

There was a frustrated yowl from the child and she tried to headbutt his skull again. "Meanie meanie stupidhead!" retorted the child, her smile never faltering. However wrestling a krogan is hard work... especially when you can only reach his head if you are sitting on his shoulders. Flailing around for a few minutes more, the child finally slid off Grunt's shoulders and into his lap. Exhausted from fending of an urge to nap for most of the day, the kid flopped herself bonelessly over Grunt's forearm, her tiny limbs dangling off his lap. She lasted only a few seconds like that before slipping into one of her frequent naps without any more fuss.

Grunt looped his arm around the kid, holding her against his chest instead of sprawled starfish over his lap. Dropping his jaw to rest on the crown of her head, he continued to watch the comm stations. Wrex's omni-tool would send reports back every few minutes, starships navigated around the battered planet in a clumsy ballet, and the Normandy's quantum link station would blink on an off as if it were winking at him. Despite all the incoming information and distractions, the krogan's only focus was the tiny child slumped in his arms, her tiny fingers clutching his armor - even in sleep reluctant to let go. Perhaps these kid-things weren't as confusing as he had originally thought.


End file.
